Economic Resilience And Social Collapse

Field Museum Of Natural History, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

Although the collapse of complex societies has long been an important and sustained scholarly research focus, concepts such as resilience and post-collapse reorganization have only recently received significant attention. Current interdisciplinary research has led to novel characterizations and approaches for understanding resilience in social, political, and economic institutions. Rather than static equilibrium-based models, these phenomena are conceptualized as dynamic and cyclical. Archaeology is uniquely positioned to contribute to these studies by incorporating data that cover very large temporal scales. Additionally, archaeological research, steeped in anthropological tradition, provides theoretical tools to evaluate changes in human behavior, such as decision-making strategies, related to adaptive or resilient organizational practices. In this study, Drs. Ronald K. Faulseit and Gary M. Feinman, of the Field Museum in Chicago, undertake research to characterize persistent and/or adaptive strategies in political and economic behavior based on the archaeological record and study its impact on political reorganization in the aftermath of political collapse. In particular, they will study change and/or continuity in organizational strategies (e.g., market exchange vs. controlled distribution) for the production and consumption of material goods before after the decline of the important political center of Monte Albán in the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico. The identification of economic strategies that are resilient to political instability and change is relevant to understanding phenomena that confront the United States today, as global economic relations are increasingly connected to politically unstable regions, such as Central Asia. The project incorporates a program of public outreach that is integrated with the efforts of professional Mexican archaeologists designed to share and disseminate research findings with the local indigenous community. The project challenges the long-held notion that independent market exchange played a minimal role in pre-modern political economies. Instead, household production strategies evident in the Oaxaca Valley during the period of Monte Albán's dominance, suggest dependence on regional market systems that functioned independent of the state. The premise of this research asserts that these economic structures were resilient to the subsequent fragmentation of the centralized political system and provided a stable platform for relatively quick political reorganization after its decline. The project team, which incorporates professionals and students from Mexico and the US, will integrate a broad program of intensive survey and surface collection, with a focused program of excavation at Dainzú-Macuilxóchitl, a second-tier center situated within the Monte Albán polity that reorganized after its decline into a prominent city-state. The project involves detailed topographic mapping to examine the orientation and layout of architectural mounds and other man-made features at the site, coupled with spatial analysis of the distributions of surface artifacts to identify locations of production activities. These data will be evaluated to characterize the organization of and relationship between sociopolitical units (e.g., households, neighborhoods, residential wards), particularly as they pertain to broad patterns of pre- and post-collapse socioeconomic behavior. To complement these data, comprehensive excavations are designed to examine more closely the evidence for behavioral patterns associated with craft production and specialization activities within a specific production area identified through previous research.