The Archaeology of Communities develops a critical evaluation of community and shows
that it represents more than a mere aggregation of households. This collection bridges the …

Human beings produce society through their interactions. Anthropology has increasingly
explored the ramifications of this theoretical position (Ortner 1984), while acknowledging …

How did our current society come into being and how is it similar to as well as different from
its predecessors? These key questions have transfixed archaeologists, anthropologists and …

The organizational structure of the famous Chaco Phenomenon has long been debated by
southwestern archaeologists. To better clarify the nature and dynamics of Chacoan …

Theoretical frames for modeling prehispanic Mesoamerican economies have been informed
mostly by political economy or agency approaches. Political economy models examine the …

Political economy is traditionally associated with the study of state-level societies,
particularly those of the mercantile and capitalist eras. However, social scientists have …

In 1993, Robert Sharer produced a concise review of Classic period Maya social
organization. Though Sharer was careful to note that there was no single pattern—Maya …

This article examines the productivity of agriculture at the Postclassic polity of Xaltocan,
Mexico. Employing multiple lines of data (remote sensing, artifactual, ecofactual …

Aggregated villages with large, central plazas appeared across the Western Pueblo region
of the US Southwest by the fourteenth century AD. We view the adoption of this settlement …

Debates concerning sociopolitical organization in the North American Southwest are
clarified and confounded by the conclusion that craft specialization was not always a …