An Examination of Factors Which Contribute to Long Term Social Stability

University Of Oklahoma Norman Campus, Norman OK

Investigators

Abstract

The reasons for what is colloquially known as societal collapse are a popular subject of debate. In anthropology, this question is more broadly phrased as why do some societies persist for long periods of time while others experience major reorganization events? Reorganizations can entail both political upheavals and, in severe cases, major demographic changes, such as migrations or other regional depopulations. All societies encounter occasional hardships known as perturbations. Often societies will weather several destabilizing shocks before a seemingly similar event triggers a major reorganization. There are also examples of perturbations in different societies having profoundly different effects. These observations suggest that explanations focusing on singular causal factors are inadequate. To explain the differential trajectories of societies, an understanding of the interaction of several variables operating at different geographic and temporal scales is required. Archaeology is well positioned to identify and describe these relationships due to its focus on long time-scales and tradition of cross-cultural comparison. Although the fates of societies in the distant past may seem to have little in common with present conditions, this research is relevant to modern scenarios. Specifically, this project will explore three variables common to all political organization. These variables are the size of communities, i.e. the largest regularly cooperating groups of people; the amount of organizational diversity present between communities; and the character of the social networks that connect communities. This research project, in addition to the gain in scientific knowledge, will foster bi-national collaboration, facilitate the completion of graduate student degree projects, and provide opportunities for international undergraduate experience. The selected study area is located in the Sierra Madre of northern Mexico. This area maintained high population levels, separated into many local communities, for at least 1000 years from approximately AD 500 to AD 1500. All surrounding regions cycled through one or more major reorganization events in this same time span. By focusing on a record of continuity, the project will invert traditional methodologies that mostly focus on explaining the causes of known reorganization events. The specific hypotheses to be tested propose that the study region was stable for an extended period of time because communities were relatively small, organizationally dissimilar, and maintained sparse but diverse connections between each other. This research proposes these qualities would have had the effect of localizing destabilizing events, preventing the spread of calamitous political collapses, and providing a means for local population redistribution once destabilizing events ended. The research team will evaluate these relationships by compiling data from previous research and collecting new archaeological data from communities throughout the Sierra Madre of Sonora, Mexico. Researchers will excavate at the largest sites in four prehistoric settlement communities, complete settlement pattern surveys in two valleys, and perform geochemical assays to reconstruct movement of materials between communities throughout eastern Sonora.