Monica Smith is an archaeologist whose principal research interests are the human interaction with material culture, urbanism as a long-term human phenomenon, and the development of social complexity.
Her current research project is at the ancient city of Sisupalgarh in eastern India, in collaboration with Dr. R.K. Mohanty of Pune's Deccan College. She also maintains long-term research interests in the American Southwest, particularly on the historic period. Phone: 310-794-9179 Address: Department of Anthropology 341 Haines Hall 375 Portola Plaza University of California Los Angeles, CA 90095-1553
In The Power of Nature, archaeologists address the force and impact of nature relative to human k... more In The Power of Nature, archaeologists address the force and impact of nature relative to human knowledge, action, and volition. Case studies from around the world focusing on different levels of sociopolitical complexity—ranging from early agricultural societies to states and empires—address the ways in which nature retains the upper hand in human agentive environmental discourse, providing an opportunity for an insightful perspective on the current anthropological emphasis on how humans affect the environment.
Climatic events, pathogens, and animals as nonhuman agents, ranging in size from viruses to mega-storms, have presented our species with dynamic conditions that overwhelm human capacities. In some cases, people modified architecture to deal with a constant onslaught of storms, as in Japan or the Caribbean; in other cases, they welcomed the occasional natural disaster as a chance to start fresh or to put into place new ideas and practices, as in the case of ancient Roman cities. Using the concept of “agency” as one in which multiple sentient and nonhuman actors interact in a landscape, and exploring locations such as the Caribbean, the Pacific, South Asia, the Andes, the Mediterranean, Mesoamerica, North America, and the Arctic, the authors provide compelling explanations of the effect of an entire realm of natural powers that beset human societies past and present—from storms, earthquakes, and fires to vegetation, domestic animals, and wild birds. Throughout, the emphasis is on the philosophical and engineering adjustments that people make to stay resilient when facing the perpetual changes of the natural world.
Contributors: Steven Ammerman, Traci Ardren, Katelyn J. Bishop, Karen Mohr Chávez, Sergio Chávez, Stanislava Chávez, Emelie Cobb, Jago Cooper, Harper Dine, Chelsea Fisher, Jennifer Huebert, Dale L. Hutchinson, Sara L. Juengst, Kanika Kalra, François Oliva, Matthew C. Peros, Jordan Pickett, Seth Quintus, John Robb, Monica L. Smith, Jillian A. Swift, Silvia Tomášková, Kyungsoo Yoo
Six thousand years ago, there were no cities on the planet. Today, more than half of the world's ... more Six thousand years ago, there were no cities on the planet. Today, more than half of the world's population lives in urban areas, and that number is growing. Weaving together archaeology, history, and contemporary observations, this book uses a global perspective to examine why cities began, how they have become the dominant mode of human settlement, and what ancient and modern cities have in common in ways that can help us understand how to make cities better. Cities today are internationally networked places that draw people in – particularly young people – for the distinctive employment, education, and entertainment opportunities that only cities can offer. People in ancient times made the same calculations: despite what might seem to be obvious disadvantages (crowding, pollution, and the high cost of living), our premodern urban counterparts came for the new and enticing configurations of cities including markets, neighborhoods, and sporting events as well as an enticing abundance of consumer goods and the entrepreneurial spaces of accelerated production. Cities were the places of the first writing, the first emergence of the middle class, and the development of distinctive types of infrastructure that linked people together to create an irresistible social phenomenon.
Using case studies from around the globe — including North America, Africa, China, and the Greco-... more Using case studies from around the globe — including North America, Africa, China, and the Greco-Roman world — and across multiple time periods, the authors in this volume makes the case that abundance provides an essential explanatory perspective on ancient peoples’ choices and activities. Economists frequently center on scarcity as a driving principle in the development of social and economic hierarchies, yet focusing on plenitude enables the understanding of a range of cohesive behaviors that were equally important for the development of social complexity.
Our earliest human ancestors were highly mobile hunter-gatherers who sought out places that provided ample food, water, and raw materials. Over time, humans accumulated and displayed an increasing quantity and variety of goods. In households, shrines, tombs, caches, and dumps, archaeologists have discovered large masses of materials that were deliberately gathered, curated, distributed, and discarded by ancient peoples. This volume’s authors draw upon new economic theories to consider the social, ideological, and political implications of human engagement with abundant quantities of resources and physical objects, and consider how individual and household approaches to material culture were conditioned by the quest for attaining abundance. They illustrate that the human propensity for mass consumption is not just the result of modern production capacities but fulfills a longstanding focus on plenitude as both the assurance of well-being and a buffer against uncertainty.
Authors and chapter titles:
Monica L. Smith, “The Archaeology of Abundance”
María Nieves Zedeño , “Rethinking the Impact of Abundance on the Rhythm of Bison Hunter Societies”
Christopher R. Moore and Christopher W. Schmidt , “Abundance in the Archaic: A Dwelling Perspective”
Mark D. Varien, James M. Potter, and Tito E. Naranjo, “Water, Wind, Breath: Seeking Abundance in the Northern American Southwest”
Payson Sheets, “Abundance in the Ancient Maya Village of Cerén?”
Traci Ardren, “Savanna Products and Resource Abundance: Asking the Right Questions about Ancient Maya Trade and Urbanism”
Elizabeth Klarich, Abigail Levine, and Carol Schultze, “Abundant Exotics and Cavalier Crafting: Obsidian Use and Emerging Complexity in the Northern Lake Titicaca Basin”
Katheryn C. Twiss and Amy Bogaard, “Coping with Abundance: The Challenges of a Good Thing”
Justin St. P. Walsh, “Pottery: Abundance, Agency, and Choice”
François G. Richard, “’Excessive Economies’and the Logics of Abundance: Genealogies of Wealth, Labor, and Social Power in Pre-Colonial Senegal”
Stacey Pierson, “Production, Distribution, and Aesthetics: Abundance and Chinese Porcelain from Jingdezhen, AD 1350–1800”
For the past million years, individuals have engaged in multitasking as they interact with the su... more For the past million years, individuals have engaged in multitasking as they interact with the surrounding environment and with each other for the acquisition of daily necessities such as food and goods. Although culture is often perceived as a collective process, it is individual people who use language, experience illness, expend energy, perceive landscapes, and create memories. These processes were sustained at the individual and household level from the time of the earliest social groups to the beginnings of settled agricultural communities and the eventual development of complex societies in the form of chiefdoms, states, and empires.
In this edited volume, the authors consider evidence for social interactions in cities of Africa,... more In this edited volume, the authors consider evidence for social interactions in cities of Africa, Mesoamerica, South America, Mesopotamia, the Indian subcontinent and China. Analyzing the spatial and social configurations of urban communities and public spaces, they demonstrate how complex networks of social relations and structures gave rise to the formation of ancient cities, contributed to their cohesion, and sustained their growth, much as they do in modern urban centers.
Beginning six thousand years ago, intermediate categories of socioeconomic status formed for the ... more Beginning six thousand years ago, intermediate categories of socioeconomic status formed for the first time in cities as entrepreneurial individuals and households engaged in scaled-up manufacturing activities and in new types of “white collar” work, such as accounting, writing, and middle management. Knowledge workers were indispensable not only for the production and trade activities that characterized ancient cities, but also for the growth and management of religious institutions and the development of political authority. Archaeological and textual data provide evidence for a middle producer-consumer stratum in both tangible possessions (real estate, dwellings, material goods) and intangible investments (schooling, language, and mannerisms). Using information from Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Rome, and Mesoamerica, the article assesses how strategies of resource management and risk-taking utilized by the middle class also resulted in generative political relationships to address middle-class anxieties through the development of law codes, insurance, and formal systems of professional advancement.
Infrastructure that shapes and facilitates daily life, such as pathways, conduits and boundary wa... more Infrastructure that shapes and facilitates daily life, such as pathways, conduits and boundary walls, constitutes one of the most dynamic forms of architecture in both ancient and modern cities. Although infrastructure is conceived and designed with particular goals and capacities, its temporal and spatial scale means that it is a constant work in progress that engages numerous agents: civic authorities design and implement infrastructure; designated agencies maintain and repair infrastructure; and ordinary people utilize, modify, ignore or destroy it. Infrastructure can be thus analyzed as a materialization of ongoing communication, in which there are often conflicts among different constituents to achieve consensus. The linguistic concepts of expert language and turn-taking are utilized to assess three brief case studies: historical New Orleans; a multipurpose micro-park in Vienna, Austria; and the archaeological city of Sisupalgarh, India.
This paper examines the conditions under which ancient peoples might have developed a concept of ... more This paper examines the conditions under which ancient peoples might have developed a concept of “sustainability,” and concludes that long-term resource management practices would not have been articulated prior to the development of the first cities starting c. 6,000 years ago. Using biological concepts of population density and niche-construction theory, cities are identified as the first places where pressures on resources might have triggered concerns for sustainability. Nonetheless, urban centers also provided ample opportunities for individuals and households to continue the same ad hoc foraging strategies that had facilitated human survival in prior eras.
As a relatively recent human phenomenon, cities are the physical culmination of many pre-existing... more As a relatively recent human phenomenon, cities are the physical culmination of many pre-existing psychological, social and cognitive capacities. The persistent presence of deliberately empty spaces in urban areas both past and present signals the conscious creation and maintenance of those locales at various levels: household, neighbourhood and civic/centralizing. Domestic empty space, in particular the space between and among habitations, was likely to have been curated and managed at the household level. However, neighbourhood-level and urban-level empty spaces were subject to multiple demands and levels of oversight; as a result, this publicly available emptiness was flexible in its use but also potentially ‘expensive’ to govern. The presence of empty spaces in an urban setting may serve as a proxy for understanding the relationship between different levels of urban interaction, from the relative autonomy of the household that used its nearby spaces idiosyncratically, to the larger impositions of authority through urban design in the form of streets and open plazas. Specific examples of empty space are assessed for the ancient city of Sisupalgarh in eastern India, where geophysical surveys and excavations have enabled us to discuss the multiple meanings of nothingness at the household, neighbourhood and urban scales.
Urban centers have inner and outer landscapes whose physical remains can be read as the materiali... more Urban centers have inner and outer landscapes whose physical remains can be read as the materialization of social, political, economic, and ritual interactions. Inner landscapes are manifested in architecture and spatial organizations that configure relationships on the basis of economic status, ethnicity, occupation, age grade, and gender within the city. Outer landscapes are composed of the hinterlands on which urban centers depend for resources, including agricultural products and in-migrating laborers who seek economic and social opportunities. Urban-based elites reach deep into the countryside not only as a matter of political control, but also for investment of centralized resources into infrastructure such as canals, roads, and territorial borders. The monumental and household configurations of cities, expressed both at the heart of urban centers and in their countrysides, enable a distinct phenomenology of interaction mapped into daily experiences.
The site-size hierarchy concept enables researchers to transform archaeological survey data into ... more The site-size hierarchy concept enables researchers to transform archaeological survey data into political classifications. Yet everything about the site-size rubric is worth rethinking , from the reliability of surface-survey data to the recognition that sites of all sizes act autonomously within territorial configurations. New ways can visualize and analyze the process whereby complex societies (chiefdoms and states) emerge through the materialized energies of constituent parts (cities, towns, resource zones, fortifications, frontiers) that ebb and flow through connections of trade, warfare, alliances, and migration characterized by multiple and overlapping dynamisms among human and non-human elements, and in which historical trajectories form the basis of memory and action. Five alternative ways of mapping and analyzing relationships among sites are offered, derived from biological models of individual and collective interaction: reticulated hierarchies, logic gates, cellular automata, recurrent connectivity, and firefly synchronicity.
With broad lines and dark shading, the cartographic depictions of ancient states and empires conv... more With broad lines and dark shading, the cartographic depictions of ancient states and empires convey the impression of comprehensive political entities having firm boundaries and uniform territorial control. These depictions oversimplify the complexities of early state growth, as well as overstating the capacity of central governments to control large territories. Archaeological and textual evidence suggests that ancient states are better understood through network models rather than bounded-territory models. Network approaches enable us to depict competition within and among polities as they grow, the efficient use of nodal points as a focus for political leaders, and the realities of nonoverlapping ritual, social, and economic activities that have an impact on political cohesion. Network maps and bounded-territory representations are compared for the Inka, Mauryan,and Sassanian polities. Key Words: archaeology, cartography, history, networks, territory.
When depicted on maps as homogenous territorial wholes, ancient states are visually summarized as... more When depicted on maps as homogenous territorial wholes, ancient states are visually summarized as static entities in a way that conceals the highly fluid dynamics of polity formation, maintenance, and growth. Models derived from studies of animal behavior show that “territory” does not consist of an undifferentiated use of the landscape. Instead, the concept of territory can be parsed into a series of resource-rich nodes linked by corridors of access, surrounded by unutilized regions and boundaries marked at points of competition. Ancient human groups also can be analyzed as having perceived and occupied landscapes through strategies of flexible networks in which nodes and corridors were surrounded by unutilized spaces around which boundaries were selectively identified and defended. This strategy is identifiable in human social groups at different levels of complexity ranging from hunter-gatherers through ancient chiefdoms and states.
The widespread availability of Google Earth has provided new opportunities for researchers in dev... more The widespread availability of Google Earth has provided new opportunities for researchers in developing nations to access aerial imagery for site discovery and monitoring. This paper discusses the use of Google Earth to identify settlements that have the same formal rampart outline as the ancient city of Sisupalgarh in eastern India, providing evidence for regional contacts and political connectivity in the first-millennium BC.
In The Power of Nature, archaeologists address the force and impact of nature relative to human k... more In The Power of Nature, archaeologists address the force and impact of nature relative to human knowledge, action, and volition. Case studies from around the world focusing on different levels of sociopolitical complexity—ranging from early agricultural societies to states and empires—address the ways in which nature retains the upper hand in human agentive environmental discourse, providing an opportunity for an insightful perspective on the current anthropological emphasis on how humans affect the environment.
Climatic events, pathogens, and animals as nonhuman agents, ranging in size from viruses to mega-storms, have presented our species with dynamic conditions that overwhelm human capacities. In some cases, people modified architecture to deal with a constant onslaught of storms, as in Japan or the Caribbean; in other cases, they welcomed the occasional natural disaster as a chance to start fresh or to put into place new ideas and practices, as in the case of ancient Roman cities. Using the concept of “agency” as one in which multiple sentient and nonhuman actors interact in a landscape, and exploring locations such as the Caribbean, the Pacific, South Asia, the Andes, the Mediterranean, Mesoamerica, North America, and the Arctic, the authors provide compelling explanations of the effect of an entire realm of natural powers that beset human societies past and present—from storms, earthquakes, and fires to vegetation, domestic animals, and wild birds. Throughout, the emphasis is on the philosophical and engineering adjustments that people make to stay resilient when facing the perpetual changes of the natural world.
Contributors: Steven Ammerman, Traci Ardren, Katelyn J. Bishop, Karen Mohr Chávez, Sergio Chávez, Stanislava Chávez, Emelie Cobb, Jago Cooper, Harper Dine, Chelsea Fisher, Jennifer Huebert, Dale L. Hutchinson, Sara L. Juengst, Kanika Kalra, François Oliva, Matthew C. Peros, Jordan Pickett, Seth Quintus, John Robb, Monica L. Smith, Jillian A. Swift, Silvia Tomášková, Kyungsoo Yoo
Six thousand years ago, there were no cities on the planet. Today, more than half of the world's ... more Six thousand years ago, there were no cities on the planet. Today, more than half of the world's population lives in urban areas, and that number is growing. Weaving together archaeology, history, and contemporary observations, this book uses a global perspective to examine why cities began, how they have become the dominant mode of human settlement, and what ancient and modern cities have in common in ways that can help us understand how to make cities better. Cities today are internationally networked places that draw people in – particularly young people – for the distinctive employment, education, and entertainment opportunities that only cities can offer. People in ancient times made the same calculations: despite what might seem to be obvious disadvantages (crowding, pollution, and the high cost of living), our premodern urban counterparts came for the new and enticing configurations of cities including markets, neighborhoods, and sporting events as well as an enticing abundance of consumer goods and the entrepreneurial spaces of accelerated production. Cities were the places of the first writing, the first emergence of the middle class, and the development of distinctive types of infrastructure that linked people together to create an irresistible social phenomenon.
Using case studies from around the globe — including North America, Africa, China, and the Greco-... more Using case studies from around the globe — including North America, Africa, China, and the Greco-Roman world — and across multiple time periods, the authors in this volume makes the case that abundance provides an essential explanatory perspective on ancient peoples’ choices and activities. Economists frequently center on scarcity as a driving principle in the development of social and economic hierarchies, yet focusing on plenitude enables the understanding of a range of cohesive behaviors that were equally important for the development of social complexity.
Our earliest human ancestors were highly mobile hunter-gatherers who sought out places that provided ample food, water, and raw materials. Over time, humans accumulated and displayed an increasing quantity and variety of goods. In households, shrines, tombs, caches, and dumps, archaeologists have discovered large masses of materials that were deliberately gathered, curated, distributed, and discarded by ancient peoples. This volume’s authors draw upon new economic theories to consider the social, ideological, and political implications of human engagement with abundant quantities of resources and physical objects, and consider how individual and household approaches to material culture were conditioned by the quest for attaining abundance. They illustrate that the human propensity for mass consumption is not just the result of modern production capacities but fulfills a longstanding focus on plenitude as both the assurance of well-being and a buffer against uncertainty.
Authors and chapter titles:
Monica L. Smith, “The Archaeology of Abundance”
María Nieves Zedeño , “Rethinking the Impact of Abundance on the Rhythm of Bison Hunter Societies”
Christopher R. Moore and Christopher W. Schmidt , “Abundance in the Archaic: A Dwelling Perspective”
Mark D. Varien, James M. Potter, and Tito E. Naranjo, “Water, Wind, Breath: Seeking Abundance in the Northern American Southwest”
Payson Sheets, “Abundance in the Ancient Maya Village of Cerén?”
Traci Ardren, “Savanna Products and Resource Abundance: Asking the Right Questions about Ancient Maya Trade and Urbanism”
Elizabeth Klarich, Abigail Levine, and Carol Schultze, “Abundant Exotics and Cavalier Crafting: Obsidian Use and Emerging Complexity in the Northern Lake Titicaca Basin”
Katheryn C. Twiss and Amy Bogaard, “Coping with Abundance: The Challenges of a Good Thing”
Justin St. P. Walsh, “Pottery: Abundance, Agency, and Choice”
François G. Richard, “’Excessive Economies’and the Logics of Abundance: Genealogies of Wealth, Labor, and Social Power in Pre-Colonial Senegal”
Stacey Pierson, “Production, Distribution, and Aesthetics: Abundance and Chinese Porcelain from Jingdezhen, AD 1350–1800”
For the past million years, individuals have engaged in multitasking as they interact with the su... more For the past million years, individuals have engaged in multitasking as they interact with the surrounding environment and with each other for the acquisition of daily necessities such as food and goods. Although culture is often perceived as a collective process, it is individual people who use language, experience illness, expend energy, perceive landscapes, and create memories. These processes were sustained at the individual and household level from the time of the earliest social groups to the beginnings of settled agricultural communities and the eventual development of complex societies in the form of chiefdoms, states, and empires.
In this edited volume, the authors consider evidence for social interactions in cities of Africa,... more In this edited volume, the authors consider evidence for social interactions in cities of Africa, Mesoamerica, South America, Mesopotamia, the Indian subcontinent and China. Analyzing the spatial and social configurations of urban communities and public spaces, they demonstrate how complex networks of social relations and structures gave rise to the formation of ancient cities, contributed to their cohesion, and sustained their growth, much as they do in modern urban centers.
Beginning six thousand years ago, intermediate categories of socioeconomic status formed for the ... more Beginning six thousand years ago, intermediate categories of socioeconomic status formed for the first time in cities as entrepreneurial individuals and households engaged in scaled-up manufacturing activities and in new types of “white collar” work, such as accounting, writing, and middle management. Knowledge workers were indispensable not only for the production and trade activities that characterized ancient cities, but also for the growth and management of religious institutions and the development of political authority. Archaeological and textual data provide evidence for a middle producer-consumer stratum in both tangible possessions (real estate, dwellings, material goods) and intangible investments (schooling, language, and mannerisms). Using information from Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Rome, and Mesoamerica, the article assesses how strategies of resource management and risk-taking utilized by the middle class also resulted in generative political relationships to address middle-class anxieties through the development of law codes, insurance, and formal systems of professional advancement.
Infrastructure that shapes and facilitates daily life, such as pathways, conduits and boundary wa... more Infrastructure that shapes and facilitates daily life, such as pathways, conduits and boundary walls, constitutes one of the most dynamic forms of architecture in both ancient and modern cities. Although infrastructure is conceived and designed with particular goals and capacities, its temporal and spatial scale means that it is a constant work in progress that engages numerous agents: civic authorities design and implement infrastructure; designated agencies maintain and repair infrastructure; and ordinary people utilize, modify, ignore or destroy it. Infrastructure can be thus analyzed as a materialization of ongoing communication, in which there are often conflicts among different constituents to achieve consensus. The linguistic concepts of expert language and turn-taking are utilized to assess three brief case studies: historical New Orleans; a multipurpose micro-park in Vienna, Austria; and the archaeological city of Sisupalgarh, India.
This paper examines the conditions under which ancient peoples might have developed a concept of ... more This paper examines the conditions under which ancient peoples might have developed a concept of “sustainability,” and concludes that long-term resource management practices would not have been articulated prior to the development of the first cities starting c. 6,000 years ago. Using biological concepts of population density and niche-construction theory, cities are identified as the first places where pressures on resources might have triggered concerns for sustainability. Nonetheless, urban centers also provided ample opportunities for individuals and households to continue the same ad hoc foraging strategies that had facilitated human survival in prior eras.
As a relatively recent human phenomenon, cities are the physical culmination of many pre-existing... more As a relatively recent human phenomenon, cities are the physical culmination of many pre-existing psychological, social and cognitive capacities. The persistent presence of deliberately empty spaces in urban areas both past and present signals the conscious creation and maintenance of those locales at various levels: household, neighbourhood and civic/centralizing. Domestic empty space, in particular the space between and among habitations, was likely to have been curated and managed at the household level. However, neighbourhood-level and urban-level empty spaces were subject to multiple demands and levels of oversight; as a result, this publicly available emptiness was flexible in its use but also potentially ‘expensive’ to govern. The presence of empty spaces in an urban setting may serve as a proxy for understanding the relationship between different levels of urban interaction, from the relative autonomy of the household that used its nearby spaces idiosyncratically, to the larger impositions of authority through urban design in the form of streets and open plazas. Specific examples of empty space are assessed for the ancient city of Sisupalgarh in eastern India, where geophysical surveys and excavations have enabled us to discuss the multiple meanings of nothingness at the household, neighbourhood and urban scales.
Urban centers have inner and outer landscapes whose physical remains can be read as the materiali... more Urban centers have inner and outer landscapes whose physical remains can be read as the materialization of social, political, economic, and ritual interactions. Inner landscapes are manifested in architecture and spatial organizations that configure relationships on the basis of economic status, ethnicity, occupation, age grade, and gender within the city. Outer landscapes are composed of the hinterlands on which urban centers depend for resources, including agricultural products and in-migrating laborers who seek economic and social opportunities. Urban-based elites reach deep into the countryside not only as a matter of political control, but also for investment of centralized resources into infrastructure such as canals, roads, and territorial borders. The monumental and household configurations of cities, expressed both at the heart of urban centers and in their countrysides, enable a distinct phenomenology of interaction mapped into daily experiences.
The site-size hierarchy concept enables researchers to transform archaeological survey data into ... more The site-size hierarchy concept enables researchers to transform archaeological survey data into political classifications. Yet everything about the site-size rubric is worth rethinking , from the reliability of surface-survey data to the recognition that sites of all sizes act autonomously within territorial configurations. New ways can visualize and analyze the process whereby complex societies (chiefdoms and states) emerge through the materialized energies of constituent parts (cities, towns, resource zones, fortifications, frontiers) that ebb and flow through connections of trade, warfare, alliances, and migration characterized by multiple and overlapping dynamisms among human and non-human elements, and in which historical trajectories form the basis of memory and action. Five alternative ways of mapping and analyzing relationships among sites are offered, derived from biological models of individual and collective interaction: reticulated hierarchies, logic gates, cellular automata, recurrent connectivity, and firefly synchronicity.
With broad lines and dark shading, the cartographic depictions of ancient states and empires conv... more With broad lines and dark shading, the cartographic depictions of ancient states and empires convey the impression of comprehensive political entities having firm boundaries and uniform territorial control. These depictions oversimplify the complexities of early state growth, as well as overstating the capacity of central governments to control large territories. Archaeological and textual evidence suggests that ancient states are better understood through network models rather than bounded-territory models. Network approaches enable us to depict competition within and among polities as they grow, the efficient use of nodal points as a focus for political leaders, and the realities of nonoverlapping ritual, social, and economic activities that have an impact on political cohesion. Network maps and bounded-territory representations are compared for the Inka, Mauryan,and Sassanian polities. Key Words: archaeology, cartography, history, networks, territory.
When depicted on maps as homogenous territorial wholes, ancient states are visually summarized as... more When depicted on maps as homogenous territorial wholes, ancient states are visually summarized as static entities in a way that conceals the highly fluid dynamics of polity formation, maintenance, and growth. Models derived from studies of animal behavior show that “territory” does not consist of an undifferentiated use of the landscape. Instead, the concept of territory can be parsed into a series of resource-rich nodes linked by corridors of access, surrounded by unutilized regions and boundaries marked at points of competition. Ancient human groups also can be analyzed as having perceived and occupied landscapes through strategies of flexible networks in which nodes and corridors were surrounded by unutilized spaces around which boundaries were selectively identified and defended. This strategy is identifiable in human social groups at different levels of complexity ranging from hunter-gatherers through ancient chiefdoms and states.
The widespread availability of Google Earth has provided new opportunities for researchers in dev... more The widespread availability of Google Earth has provided new opportunities for researchers in developing nations to access aerial imagery for site discovery and monitoring. This paper discusses the use of Google Earth to identify settlements that have the same formal rampart outline as the ancient city of Sisupalgarh in eastern India, providing evidence for regional contacts and political connectivity in the first-millennium BC.
Archaeological records and historical documents provide complementary data for the understanding... more Archaeological records and historical documents provide complementary data for the understanding of temporary laborers' quarters related to large-scale construction projects. In this work, documents are used to evaluate data from an archaeological surface survey of a large 1930s era work camp of the Civilian Conservation Corps in northern New Mexico. The camp, occupied for seven years, was bulldozed immediately after its occupants left. Despite this drastic step, surface remains are still visible, and the site was recorded in 1990 and 1991 as part of a long-term survey project at Bandelier National Monument. Artifacts, rubble, and altered vegetation patterns constitute the known archaeological remains of the site and form the basis for the identification of activity areas. Historic maps and photographs complement artifact analysis and vegetation studies to illustrate the camp's configurations. Introduction
Citizen science, as a process of volunteer participation through crowdsourcing, facilitates the c... more Citizen science, as a process of volunteer participation through crowdsourcing, facilitates the creation of mass data sets needed to address subtle and large-scale patterns in complex phenomena. Citizen science efforts in other field disciplines such as biology, geography, and astronomy indicate how new web-based interfaces can enhance and expand upon archaeologists’ existing platforms of volunteer engagement such as field schools, community archaeology, site stewardship, and professional–avocational partnerships. Archaeological research can benefit from the citizen science paradigm in four ways: fieldwork that makes use of widely available technologies such as mobile applications for photography and data upload; searches of large satellite image ollections for site identification and monitoring; rowdfunding; and crowdsourced computer entry of heritage data.
The 2020 American holiday season brought a realization that turkeys were too large for the scaled... more The 2020 American holiday season brought a realization that turkeys were too large for the scaled-down holiday meals that most people anticipated. This insight about portion size, feast expectations, and material culture provides an opportunity to evaluate both everyday and festival meals in the archaeological past as well.
Archaeologists often interpret the physical evidence for large-scale consumption of food and beve... more Archaeologists often interpret the physical evidence for large-scale consumption of food and beverages as the remains of feasts that successfully enhanced personal reputations, consolidated power, or ensured community solidarity. However, ethnographic accounts illustrate the potential for "feast failure”: people may or may not contribute, may or may not come to the feast, may or may not be satisfied, and may or may not repay the feast-giver in labor or obeisance. Because they involve so many logistical and material components before, during, and after the event, feasts almost always exhibit some shortcomings. These failures paradoxically provide both hosts and guests the opportunity to demonstrate their managerial skills, a factor that would have been increasingly important with the development of multiple and overlapping groups at the inception of social complexity. The use of failure-prone events as testing grounds for social integration also may explain the increased amount and diversity of feasting behavior over time.
Food preference is a socially constructed concept in which both consumers and producers define wh... more Food preference is a socially constructed concept in which both consumers and producers define what is “good to eat.” Staple crops and daily meals are an important component of these definitions, as the regular use of particular foods reinforces norms of identity. Food preferences also affect agricultural systems because choices among cultivars are based on social needs in addition to economic variables such as yield and caloric value. Through textual and archaeological evidence, the trajectory of rice production is examined for Sri Lanka, the Brahmaputra Valley, the Tamil region, and Vijayanagara. In these regions and elsewhere in South Asia, shared ideologies of food preference resulted in a consensus mode of agricultural production: Irrigation works increased the tax base for political leaders and the donation base for temple economies, but they also benefited local inhabitants who would have been able to partake of a preferred food on a more regular basis.
In the study of ancient material culture, archaeologists have primarily focused on the use of ob... more In the study of ancient material culture, archaeologists have primarily focused on the use of objects for display and communication. This social function of material culture could only have developed on the basis of individual cognitive capacity for the use of goods as materializations of symbolic behavior. To explore the deeply held relationship of identity to material culture, this paper focuses on goods that are utilized away from the gaze of others. Using examples from the ethnographic present such as pharmaceuticals, underwear, and hygiene products, I develop the idea of “reflexive identity” to describe how people use material objects in private to define themselves prior to and independent of their social roles as perceived by others. The act of daily identity creation and affirmation through goods, particularly those that are inexpensive and disposable, indicates the extent to which human cognition and psychological sense of self are inextricably linked to the handling of material culture. The archaeological application of a reflexive identity enables us to understand how ordinary goods are a fundamental component of identity formation prior to and independent of individuals’ engagement with others.
The use of consumption studies to examine the social as well as the utilitarian role played by or... more The use of consumption studies to examine the social as well as the utilitarian role played by ordinary domestic goods helps to explain why exchange is a compelling social phenomenon. Under conditions of emergent social complexity, exchange activities become even more important, because a diversity of goods enables an ever-growing number of individuals to demonstrate membership in cross-cutting social groups based on status, ethnicity, age, gender, and profession. An archaeological case study in central India, in which it was found that nonlocal goods were widespread in a medium-sized town in the early centuries A.D., provides data for the evaluation of consumption activities at the household level, in which "social subsistence " was manifest in the acquisition and use of a shared material culture.
The development of social complexity in the last 10,000 years emanates from a significant shift i... more The development of social complexity in the last 10,000 years emanates from a significant shift in resource procurement and population growth starting at the beginning of the Holocene. However, the cognitive and social capacities to create and sustain ever-larger social groupings were inherent in Homo sapiens long before the actual development of complex societies. In this paper it is argued that the intensification and display of shared cultural ideals constituted the necessary foundations of the trajectory towards chiefdoms, states, and empires. These social components can be traced to the beginning of sedentism, when shared ideologies were materialized in increasingly detailed and labor-intensive actions at the household level related to architecture, ornamentation, dress, and food consumption. The concomitant shift to social complexity required increasing amounts of labor investments at two other levels as well: absorbing and actualizing new cultural activities such as ritual at the level of the household and neighborhood, and as a component of labor tax/tribute to newly-emergent permanent authorities at the level of the community. Three regions of the world with long trajectories to social complexity are examined: the Indus Valley, with a particular emphasis on the neolithic community at Mehrgarh (Pakistan); the Levant from the beginnings of the Natufian culture; and the American Southwest from the late Archaic to the development of the Chaco culture phenomenon.
The human engagement with material culture is usually analyzed in terms of production, distributi... more The human engagement with material culture is usually analyzed in terms of production, distribution, and consumption. Each of these stages is indicative of decision-making: in the fashioning of objects, their circulation in the social realm (through gift, trade, or theft), and their use by the recipient(s). No less complex a phenomenon is what follows consumption: discard. Studies of the placement of trash in both modern and ancient contexts provide insights on the way in which the leave-taking of possessions is as pointed a statement of identity as their production, circulation and possession. This paper considers both sacred and secular trash as a component of material culture and identity, using examples from contemporary South Asia and from the ancient urban site of Sisupalgarh in eastern India.
Archaeological and historical research shows that many labor-intensive traditions of craftmaking ... more Archaeological and historical research shows that many labor-intensive traditions of craftmaking such as pottery, metallurgy, and textile manufacturing encompass a long period of apprenticeship that requires the cooperation of group members for the successful transfer of knowledge. In some cases heredity management is codified into “castes” which have moral overtones in addition to their economic specializations. Higher-caste groups tend to treat lower-caste groups as socially inferior, even though lower-caste groups usually provide needed goods and services. This paper uses Amartya Sen’s concept of “entitlement” (1981, Poverty and Famines) and Charles Tilly’s concept of “opportunity hoarding” (1998, Durable Inequality) to understand how caste emerged to encompass the paradox of essential services and low social status. Case studies from the historical era of West Africa and the Indian subcontinent illustrate how caste develops as a response to sharp declines in economic conditions, in which strictly-defined occupational designations become beneficial to laboring groups, and in which low social status is accepted in exchange for a guarantee of livelihood. The observations about group formation as a response to specific historically-contingent circumstances has implications for our understanding of how other types of groups, such as gangs and insurgencies, form in times of economic duress.
Starting approximately 5,000 years ago, artisans began to utilize molds to cast flowing media suc... more Starting approximately 5,000 years ago, artisans began to utilize molds to cast flowing media such as metal, clay, glass, and plaster. Molds enabled manufacturers to efficiently increase the number of objects produced and enabled multiple consumers to acquire exact duplicates. The ability to make perfect copies also resulted in new perceptions of style and value, as both producers and consumers could identify distinctions along a scale of originality, from innovative one-of-a-kind items to reliably standardized examples to imperfectly executed knockoffs. This article examines the extent to which the acceptance of copying as a legitimate form of production and consumption for portable objects was linked to the technological processes that enabled exact replications to be made. The article also identifies urban centers as focal points of increased population density and economic activity that played a particular role in the adoption of molding technologies and their finished products. An example is taken from the Indian subcontinent, where the ancient city of Sisupalgarh provides evidence for the widespread use of rapidly made molded terracotta jewelry such as bracelets, pendants, and ear ornaments.
Most of the mundane artefacts of ancient daily life that we excavate or collect ultimately reflec... more Most of the mundane artefacts of ancient daily life that we excavate or collect ultimately reflect the produc-tion, preparation and consumption of food: projectile points, bones, hearths, cooking pots, grinding tools, grain fragments, storage pits, serving vessels and so forth. The social ...
Felicitating a Legendary Archaeologist: B.B. Lal, edited by B.R. Mani, Rajesh Lal, Neera Misra and Vinay Kumar, vol III, pp. 671-685. B.R. Publishing, Delhi., 2018
The "written" works of the past three thousand years in the Indian subcontinent present a variety... more The "written" works of the past three thousand years in the Indian subcontinent present a variety of challenges to those who use them in conjunction with archaeological evidence. Any text that we see in a printed document today has undergone numerous transformations from the time in which it was first created: oral traditions that were transcribed and recopied may combine many generations of copyists' revisions and additions, while political and religious texts offer prescriptions that may not have been actualized. Even stone inscriptions, which are transmitted to us in their original form, contain ambiguities due to fragmentation, weathering, and translation. This paper focuses on the writings preserved from the first era of extensive physical records, the Early Historic period (ca. 3rd century BC to 4th century AD). Among these, political treatises are likely to have preserved an idealized concept of social order, while religious and poetic texts were likely to have been copied and preserved because of their resonance with actual conditions. The different textual traditions are evaluated with reference to the archaeological site of Sisupalgarh in eastern India, where local inscriptions can be compared with administrative and literary texts.
The site of Gauranga Patana is spread out over approximately four hectares on the western shore o... more The site of Gauranga Patana is spread out over approximately four hectares on the western shore of the present-day Chilka Lake in Odisha state, India. Excavations of four different areas were undertaken to investigate the cultural remains and stratigraphic sequence, revealing pottery that is contemporaneous with the Early Historic settlements of Sisupalgarh and Talapada. Excavations also revealed an abundance of marine shells and a diversity of other aquatic species that indicate an intensive use of local resources. The recovery of Gauranga Patana as a coastal site provides the opportunity to understand the configuration and function of “port” sites in the Early Historic period in eastern India.
Of all the potential raw materials available in nature, stone is the most durable and has been us... more Of all the potential raw materials available in nature, stone is the most durable and has been used for both practical and symbolic constructions throughout the world. Much archaeological theorizing on stone has focused on portable objects such as tools, ornamental objects such as beads, and shaped architectural elements such as blocks. Unmodified stones such as pebbles also provide the opportunity to evaluate individual engagements with stone, in which pebble-carrying and pebble-deposition provide opportunities for all members of society to participate in monumental actions through the incremental addition of tangible devotional and construction elements. This paper examines pebbles as a measure of individual participation in archaeologically detectable religious and social rituals at the ancient city of Sisupalgarh in India where thousands of quartzite pebbles were transported and embedded into the plaster floors of the site’s central ritual structure.
In discussions of human-environmental dynamics and climate change, treatments of water usually fo... more In discussions of human-environmental dynamics and climate change, treatments of water usually focus on the problem of drought. Monsoon environments constitute a different set of parameters for landscape interactions because of seasonal episodes of water abundance. In this paper, we evaluate the microscale management of routine and anticipated high-water events for the ancient Indian subcontinent, where people used the monsoon cycle to engage in rice farming that in turn supported the growth of cities. Rice production would have encompassed two fluctuating inputs: rural labor, which may have become scarce when villagers left farmlands to become city dwellers; and water, the quantity of which varies dramatically on both a seasonal basis because of the monsoon and on an occasional basis because of tropical cyclones. The abundance of water (even with its risks of overabundance) encompassed numerous logistical challenges but also permitted high productivity within short distances of urban centers. The case study of the ancient city of Sisupalgarh in eastern India illustrates that high levels of productivity per land area enabled city residents to engage in short-distance economies for food production, while maintaining regional contacts through durable-goods trade to mitigate occasional episodes of crop failure in times of major flooding.
The concept of the "smart city" encompasses urban planning, efficient delivery of common resource... more The concept of the "smart city" encompasses urban planning, efficient delivery of common resources, environmental awareness, and lifestyle enhancements. In India, the "smart city" concept was officially launched in 2015 as a competition for government funding and recognition. Yet archaeological studies illustrate that city governance has long been utilized to maximize sustainability, human-resource development, and public well-being. In this paper we analyze the 2,000-year-old city of Sisupalgarh in eastern India to illustrate the antiquity and effectiveness of the "smart city" concept.
The chemical and physical properties of natural materials, when combined in novel configurations ... more The chemical and physical properties of natural materials, when combined in novel configurations or treated through processes such as fire, provide scope for humans to develop new and distinct substances. The sophisticated use of composite materials by ancient people (including concrete, plaster, and glass) enabled greater creativity in art, a greater range of architectural forms, and a more rapid production of daily-use goods. Composite materials also can be highly cost-effective as they are amenable to techniques such as molding that enables the production of novel shapes, and can make use of discarded materials as an efficient form of recycling. This paper examines the use of a composite process that was developed by ancient people to mimic solid stone at the ancient city of Sisupalgarh and its satellite town of Talapada during the Early Historic period (3rd century BCE-4th century CE) in eastern India.
The Early Historic and medieval periods of South Asia experienced a resurgence of cities and unif... more The Early Historic and medieval periods of South Asia experienced a resurgence of cities and unifying religious traditions. The chapter examines the social and political changes associated with those developments, and proposes ways in which the study of both eras can be augmented with new technologies and theoretical approaches.
The ancient city of Sisupalgarh in eastern India shows a long-term archaeological record of urban... more The ancient city of Sisupalgarh in eastern India shows a long-term archaeological record of urbanism in the Early Historic period (3rd century BCE – 4th century CE). Sustained occupation during the period of the Kalinga War supports a model of urban resilience at times of documented political conflict. The paper also introduces a new chronological framing of social complexity in South Asia through the identification of an “Initial Urban Phase” from the 8th-4th centuries BCE.
The Mauryan dynasty of the third century BC was the first to unite the greater part of the Indian... more The Mauryan dynasty of the third century BC was the first to unite the greater part of the Indian subcontinent under a single ruler, yet its demographic geography remains largely uncertain. Here, the HYDE 3.1 database of past population and land-use is used to offer insights into key aspects of Mauryan political geography through the locational analysis of the Ashokan edicts, which are the first stone inscriptions known from the subcontinent and which constitute the first durable statement of Buddhist-inspired beliefs. The known distribution of rock and pillar edicts across the subcontinent can be combined with HYDE 3.1 to generate predictive models for the location of undiscovered examples and to investigate the relationship between political economy and religious activities in an early state.
The site of Talapada is a 25 ha settlement with a square formal perimeter that replicates the ram... more The site of Talapada is a 25 ha settlement with a square formal perimeter that replicates the rampart at the nearby Early Historic urban center of Sisupalgarh. Geophysical survey and excavations were used to investigate the interior of the Talapada settlement, revealing that occupation was selective within the rampart perimeter and that the site was not fully inhabited even during a period of substantial occupation at nearby Early Historic sites such as Sisupalgarh. Artifacts were similar in type and abundance to Sisupalgarh, however, suggesting that the dwellers of smaller sites in the urban hinterlands fully participated in the regional economy of the Early Historic period.
Systematic, intensive surface collection at the 6.5 hectare site of Kaundinyapura in central Indi... more Systematic, intensive surface collection at the 6.5 hectare site of Kaundinyapura in central India provides data to analyze economic activities at a town-sized settlement tied to a regional network from the late first millennium BC to the early first millennium AD. The data show a widespread pattern of manufacturing and consumption activities at the site, and that trading activities were likely to have taken place at the household level. The assessment of local and regional trading patterns provides a more comprehensive view of the subcontinent's political economy in the Early Historic period, a time of increasing social complexity and long-distance exchanges.
The ancient urban center of Mahasthangarh, located in west-central Bangladesh, is a walled city w... more The ancient urban center of Mahasthangarh, located in west-central Bangladesh, is a walled city with occupation starting in the late first millennium BC. While the urban container was well-delineated, the life of the city extended beyond its walls to the surrounding hinterlands. Reconnaissance in the region around the site reveals a landscape that has been worked and reworked for centuries by human hands. In addition, the region has been subjected to landscape changes through earthquakes and floods. Observations from an archaeological reconnaissance in 1998 and 1999 are used to model the relationships between the city and its hinterland from the Early Historic through the medieval Islamic periods.
This paper covers the systematic survey and mapping components of archaeological research at Sisu... more This paper covers the systematic survey and mapping components of archaeological research at Sisupalgarh. The paper serves as the background for the later excavations and geophysical survey at the site (see subsequent papers by Mohanty and Smith)
This article reports the findings of the last season of excavations at Sisupalgarh, which focused... more This article reports the findings of the last season of excavations at Sisupalgarh, which focused on the northwestern gateway and an area outside of the rampart to the north. The gateway was found to have been placed over initial habitation deposits, indicating the division of the city into walled and unwalled components from the beginning of the settlement’s occupation. The gateway was augmented numerous times in the site’s occupation, both in terms of height and as an extension to the exterior moat. This gateway “extension” was probably used for loading and unloading of commodities moved in and out of the city. The city had suburbs at least on the northern and western sides beyond the encircling moat; excavations at the northern suburb shows habitation deposits as well as evidence of mud stupa-like structures embellished by laterite slabs probably belonging to later part of 1st millennium B.C.
Long-distance exchange is a hallmark of ancient complex societies. The exotic provenance of goods... more Long-distance exchange is a hallmark of ancient complex societies. The exotic provenance of goods or raw materials is clearest when an object is of a recognizably non-local material or crafted in a distinctly non-local style. Archaeologists usually interpret these exotica to be indicative of high status when found in contexts otherwise identifiable as elite. But “exotica” may have had many meanings for ancient people, and the impact of trade may have been much greater than previously acknowledged when we add archaeologically invisible goods such as textiles. This paper examines two cases of Bronze Age interaction: trade between Mesopotamia and Egypt, and between Mesopotamia and the Indus.
Archaeology Under Fire Archaeology Under Fire is a ground-breaking collection which addresses the... more Archaeology Under Fire Archaeology Under Fire is a ground-breaking collection which addresses the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean as one of the most politically-charged regions in which archaeology is implicated. Historically, this area played a formative role in the ...
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Climatic events, pathogens, and animals as nonhuman agents, ranging in size from viruses to mega-storms, have presented our species with dynamic conditions that overwhelm human capacities. In some cases, people modified architecture to deal with a constant onslaught of storms, as in Japan or the Caribbean; in other cases, they welcomed the occasional natural disaster as a chance to start fresh or to put into place new ideas and practices, as in the case of ancient Roman cities. Using the concept of “agency” as one in which multiple sentient and nonhuman actors interact in a landscape, and exploring locations such as the Caribbean, the Pacific, South Asia, the Andes, the Mediterranean, Mesoamerica, North America, and the Arctic, the authors provide compelling explanations of the effect of an entire realm of natural powers that beset human societies past and present—from storms, earthquakes, and fires to vegetation, domestic animals, and wild birds. Throughout, the emphasis is on the philosophical and engineering adjustments that people make to stay resilient when facing the perpetual changes of the natural world.
Contributors: Steven Ammerman, Traci Ardren, Katelyn J. Bishop, Karen Mohr Chávez, Sergio Chávez, Stanislava Chávez, Emelie Cobb, Jago Cooper, Harper Dine, Chelsea Fisher, Jennifer Huebert, Dale L. Hutchinson, Sara L. Juengst, Kanika Kalra, François Oliva, Matthew C. Peros, Jordan Pickett, Seth Quintus, John Robb, Monica L. Smith, Jillian A. Swift, Silvia Tomášková, Kyungsoo Yoo
Our earliest human ancestors were highly mobile hunter-gatherers who sought out places that provided ample food, water, and raw materials. Over time, humans accumulated and displayed an increasing quantity and variety of goods. In households, shrines, tombs, caches, and dumps, archaeologists have discovered large masses of materials that were deliberately gathered, curated, distributed, and discarded by ancient peoples. This volume’s authors draw upon new economic theories to consider the social, ideological, and political implications of human engagement with abundant quantities of resources and physical objects, and consider how individual and household approaches to material culture were conditioned by the quest for attaining abundance. They illustrate that the human propensity for mass consumption is not just the result of modern production capacities but fulfills a longstanding focus on plenitude as both the assurance of well-being and a buffer against uncertainty.
Authors and chapter titles:
Monica L. Smith, “The Archaeology of Abundance”
María Nieves Zedeño , “Rethinking the Impact of Abundance on the Rhythm of Bison Hunter Societies”
Christopher R. Moore and Christopher W. Schmidt , “Abundance in the Archaic: A Dwelling Perspective”
Mark D. Varien, James M. Potter, and Tito E. Naranjo, “Water, Wind, Breath: Seeking Abundance in the Northern American Southwest”
Payson Sheets, “Abundance in the Ancient Maya Village of Cerén?”
Traci Ardren, “Savanna Products and Resource Abundance: Asking the Right Questions about Ancient Maya Trade and Urbanism”
Elizabeth Klarich, Abigail Levine, and Carol Schultze, “Abundant Exotics and Cavalier Crafting: Obsidian Use and Emerging Complexity in the Northern Lake Titicaca Basin”
Katheryn C. Twiss and Amy Bogaard, “Coping with Abundance: The Challenges of a Good Thing”
Justin St. P. Walsh, “Pottery: Abundance, Agency, and Choice”
François G. Richard, “’Excessive Economies’and the Logics of Abundance: Genealogies of Wealth, Labor, and Social Power in Pre-Colonial Senegal”
Stacey Pierson, “Production, Distribution, and Aesthetics: Abundance and Chinese Porcelain from Jingdezhen, AD 1350–1800”
http://upcolorado.com/university-press-of-colorado/item/3156-abundance
Nonetheless, urban centers also provided ample opportunities for individuals and households to continue the same ad hoc foraging strategies that had facilitated human survival in prior eras.
Climatic events, pathogens, and animals as nonhuman agents, ranging in size from viruses to mega-storms, have presented our species with dynamic conditions that overwhelm human capacities. In some cases, people modified architecture to deal with a constant onslaught of storms, as in Japan or the Caribbean; in other cases, they welcomed the occasional natural disaster as a chance to start fresh or to put into place new ideas and practices, as in the case of ancient Roman cities. Using the concept of “agency” as one in which multiple sentient and nonhuman actors interact in a landscape, and exploring locations such as the Caribbean, the Pacific, South Asia, the Andes, the Mediterranean, Mesoamerica, North America, and the Arctic, the authors provide compelling explanations of the effect of an entire realm of natural powers that beset human societies past and present—from storms, earthquakes, and fires to vegetation, domestic animals, and wild birds. Throughout, the emphasis is on the philosophical and engineering adjustments that people make to stay resilient when facing the perpetual changes of the natural world.
Contributors: Steven Ammerman, Traci Ardren, Katelyn J. Bishop, Karen Mohr Chávez, Sergio Chávez, Stanislava Chávez, Emelie Cobb, Jago Cooper, Harper Dine, Chelsea Fisher, Jennifer Huebert, Dale L. Hutchinson, Sara L. Juengst, Kanika Kalra, François Oliva, Matthew C. Peros, Jordan Pickett, Seth Quintus, John Robb, Monica L. Smith, Jillian A. Swift, Silvia Tomášková, Kyungsoo Yoo
Our earliest human ancestors were highly mobile hunter-gatherers who sought out places that provided ample food, water, and raw materials. Over time, humans accumulated and displayed an increasing quantity and variety of goods. In households, shrines, tombs, caches, and dumps, archaeologists have discovered large masses of materials that were deliberately gathered, curated, distributed, and discarded by ancient peoples. This volume’s authors draw upon new economic theories to consider the social, ideological, and political implications of human engagement with abundant quantities of resources and physical objects, and consider how individual and household approaches to material culture were conditioned by the quest for attaining abundance. They illustrate that the human propensity for mass consumption is not just the result of modern production capacities but fulfills a longstanding focus on plenitude as both the assurance of well-being and a buffer against uncertainty.
Authors and chapter titles:
Monica L. Smith, “The Archaeology of Abundance”
María Nieves Zedeño , “Rethinking the Impact of Abundance on the Rhythm of Bison Hunter Societies”
Christopher R. Moore and Christopher W. Schmidt , “Abundance in the Archaic: A Dwelling Perspective”
Mark D. Varien, James M. Potter, and Tito E. Naranjo, “Water, Wind, Breath: Seeking Abundance in the Northern American Southwest”
Payson Sheets, “Abundance in the Ancient Maya Village of Cerén?”
Traci Ardren, “Savanna Products and Resource Abundance: Asking the Right Questions about Ancient Maya Trade and Urbanism”
Elizabeth Klarich, Abigail Levine, and Carol Schultze, “Abundant Exotics and Cavalier Crafting: Obsidian Use and Emerging Complexity in the Northern Lake Titicaca Basin”
Katheryn C. Twiss and Amy Bogaard, “Coping with Abundance: The Challenges of a Good Thing”
Justin St. P. Walsh, “Pottery: Abundance, Agency, and Choice”
François G. Richard, “’Excessive Economies’and the Logics of Abundance: Genealogies of Wealth, Labor, and Social Power in Pre-Colonial Senegal”
Stacey Pierson, “Production, Distribution, and Aesthetics: Abundance and Chinese Porcelain from Jingdezhen, AD 1350–1800”
http://upcolorado.com/university-press-of-colorado/item/3156-abundance
Nonetheless, urban centers also provided ample opportunities for individuals and households to continue the same ad hoc foraging strategies that had facilitated human survival in prior eras.
of identity. Food preferences also affect agricultural systems because choices among cultivars are based on social needs in addition to economic variables such as yield and caloric value. Through textual and archaeological evidence, the trajectory of rice production is examined for Sri Lanka, the Brahmaputra Valley, the Tamil region, and Vijayanagara. In these regions and elsewhere in South Asia, shared ideologies of food preference resulted in a consensus mode of agricultural production: Irrigation works increased the tax base for political leaders and the donation base for temple economies, but they also benefited local inhabitants who would have been able to partake of a preferred food on a more regular basis.