Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T15:37:08.043Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Corporate Power Strategies in the Late Formative to Early Classic Tequila Valleys of Central Jalisco

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Christopher S. Beekman*
Affiliation:
Campus Box 103, P.O. Box 173364, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, Denver, CO 80217 ([email protected])

Abstract

Corporate political strategies (Blanton et al. 1996) that privilege power-sharing over exclusionary tactics are recognized to be important yet understudied forms of political behavior in early complex polities. I present the case of the Tequila valleys of western Mexico to illustrate several points about this corporate system: that the component descent groups can be recognized through their different approaches to architectural construction and burial patterns; that they form groups of counterpoised lineages that shared power; that the relationships between these groups become more fixed and hierarchical across different scales of architecture; and that there are distinct strata within the burial patterns that separate power-sharing groups from the rest of the community. It may be easier to identify and trace aspects of political organization here than in complex and layered urban settings that have been the focus of similar research.

Resumen

Resumen

Estrategias políticas corporativas (Blanton y otros 1996) privilegian el compartimiento de poder en vez de las tácticas exclusivas, y se reconocen por su importancia en la política antigua, pero son pocos estudiados. Presento el estudio de caso para los valles de Tequila del occidente de México para ilustrar ciertos puntos sobre un sistema corporativa: que los grupos componentes pueden ser reconocidos por sus acercamientos a la construcción arquitectónica y patrones mortuorios; que forman grupos de linajes contrapuestos que compartieron el poder política; que las relaciones entre estos grupos se hacen mas fijas y jerárquicas a través de las escalas diferentes de la arquitectura; y que hay estratos distintos en los patrones de entierro que separan estos grupos del resto de la comunidad. Jalisco pueda tener más potential identificar y remontar aspectos de las estrategias políticas corporativas que en los contextos urbanos complejos y estratificados que han sido el foco de otras investigaciones de estrategias corporativas.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Barrett, John C. 1996 The Living, the Dead and the Ancestors: Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Mortuary Practices. In Contemporary Archaeology in Theory, a Reader, edited by Robert W. Preucel and Ian Hodder, pp. 394412. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S. 1996 Political Boundaries and Political Structure: The Limits of the Teuchitlán Tradition. Ancient Mesoamerica 7:135147.Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S. 1999 A Volumetric Assessment of Social Ranking in West Mexican Shaft Tombs. Paper presented at the 64th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Anthropology, Chicago.Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S. 2000 The Correspondence of Regional Patterns and Local Strategies in Formative to Classic Period West Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 19:385412.Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S. 2003a Agricultural Pole Rituals and Rulership in Late Formative Central Jalisco. Ancient Mesoamerica 14:299318.Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S. 2003b Fruitful Symmetry: Corn and Cosmology in the Public Architecture of Late Formative and Early Classic Jalisco. Mesoamerican Voices 1:522.Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S. 2003c Political Boundaries and Landscape in Ancient Complex Polities. Manuscript on file, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado at Denver.Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S. 2003d Llano Grande Construction Sequence. Manuscript on file, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado at Denver.Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S. 2003e Llano Grande Ceramics. Manuscript on file, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado at Denver.Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S. 2004 Navajas Construction Sequence. Manuscript on file, Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado at Denver.Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S. 2005 Agency, Collectivities, and Emergence: Social Theory and Agent Based Simulations. In Nonlinear Models for Archaeology and Anthropology: Continuing the Revolution, edited by Christopher S. Beekman and William W. Baden, pp. 5178. Ashgate Press, Aldershot, U.K. Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S. 2006 Los Sistemas Políticos del Formativo en los Valles de Tequila, Jalisco y su Relación con la Subsistencia. In Las sociedades complejas del antiguo Occidente de México. Homenaje a Phil C. Weigand, edited by Eduardo Williams. Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora, México, in press.Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S. 2007 Transition and Trajectory: The Late Formative to Classic Shift in the Highland Lakes District of Central Jalisco. Paper presented at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Austin, Texas.Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S., and Javier Galván Villegas, L. 2006 The Shaft Tombs of the Atemajac Valley and Their Relation to Settlement. In Mortuary Practices and Shaft Tombs in Western Mexico: An Homenaje to Phil Weigand, a Special Section of Ancient Mesoamerica 17:259270.Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S., and Weigand, Phil C. 2000 La Cerámica Arqueológica de la Tradición Teuchitlán, Jalisco. Colegio de Michoacán and the Secretaría de Culture del Estado de Jalisco, Zamora, Michoacán.Google Scholar
Beekman, Christopher S., and Weigand, Phil C. 2008 Conclusiones, Cronología, y un Intento a Síntesis. In La Tradición Teuchitlán: Un Síntesis Basado en las Excavaciones de los Guachimontones y Navajas, Jalisco, edited by Phil C. Weigand, Christopher S. Beekman, and Rodrigo Esparza López, pp. 303337. Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora, México, in press.Google Scholar
Blanton, Richard E. 1998 Beyond Centralization. Steps Toward a Theory of Egalitarian Behavior in Archaic States. In Archaic States, edited by Gary M. Feinman and Joyce Marcus, pp. 135172. School of American Research, Santa Fe.Google Scholar
Blanton, Richard E., Feinman, Gary M., Kowalewski, Stephen A., and Peregrine, Peter N. 1996 A Dual-Processual Theory for the Evolution of Mesoamerican Civilization. Current Anthropology 37:114.Google Scholar
Brumfiel, Elizabeth 1994 Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World: An Introduction. In Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World, edited by Elizabeth Brumfiel and John Fox, pp. 313. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Buikstra, Jane E., and Charles, Douglas K. 1999 Centering the Ancestors: Cemeteries, Mounds and Sacred Landscapes of the Ancient North American Mid-continent. In Archaeologies of Landscape. Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Wendy Ashmore and A. Bernard Knapp, pp. 201228. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.Google Scholar
Butterwick, K. 2004 Heritage of Power: Ancient Sculpture from West Mexico. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.Google Scholar
María Teresa, Cabrero G., and Carlos, López C. 1997 Catálogo de Piezas de las Tumbas de Tiro del Cañón de Bolaños. Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicos. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México, D.F. Google Scholar
María Teresa, Cabrero G., and Carlos, López C. 2002 Civilizatión en el Norte de México, Volumen II. UNAM, México, D.F. Google Scholar
Cach, Eric Orlando 2005 El Ritual Funerario de la Tradición Teuchitlán. In El Antiguo Occidente de México. Nuevas perspectivas sohre el pasado prehispánico, edited by Eduardo Williams, Phil C. Weigand, Lorenza López Mestas, and David C. Grove. pp. 107123. Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora, México.Google Scholar
Carot, Patricia 2001 Le site de Loma Alta, Lac de Zacapu, Michoacan, Mexique. Paris Monographs in American Archaeology 9. Series Editor Eric Taladoire. BAR International Series 920. Oxford.Google Scholar
Chapman, Robert 1995 Ten Years After–Megaliths, Mortuary Practices, and the Territorial Model. In Regional Approaches to Mortuary Analysis, edited by L. A. Beck, pp. 2951. Plenum Press, New York.Google Scholar
Christensen, Alexander Fletcher 1998 Skeletal Evidence for Familial Interments in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Homo 49:273288.Google Scholar
Clark, John E., and Blake, Michael 1994 The Power of Prestige: Competitive Generosity and the Emergence of Rank Societies in Lowland Mesoamerica. In Factional Competition and Political Development in the New World, edited by Elizabeth M. Brumfiel and John W. Fox, pp. 1530. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Cooper, Lisa 2006 The Demise and Regeneration of Bronze Age Urban Centers in the Euphrates Valley of Syria. In After Collapse. The Regeneration of Complex Societies, edited by Glenn M. Schwartz and John J. Nichols, pp. 1837. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Corona Núñez, José 1954 DiferentesTiposde Tumbas Prehispánicas en Nayarit. Yan 3:4650.Google Scholar
Corona Núñez, José 1955 Tumha de El Arenal, Etzatlán, Jalisco. Dirección de Monumentos Pre-Hispánicos, Informes 3. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México, D.F. Google Scholar
Cowgill, George L. 2004 Origins and Development of Urbanism: Archaeological Perspectives. Annual Review of Anthropology 33:525549.Google Scholar
Crumley, Carole 1995 Heterarchy and the Analysis of Complex Societies. In Heterarchy and the Analysis of Complex Societies. edited by R. Ehrenreich, C. L. Crumley, and J. E. Levy. pp. 15. Archeological Papers 6. American Anthropological Association, Arlington, Virginia.Google Scholar
Feinman, Gary M. 2000 Dual-Processual Theory and Social Formations in the Southwest. In Alternative Leadership Strategies in the Prehispanic Southwest, edited by Barbara J. Mills, pp. 207224. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Feinman, Gary M., Lightfoot, Kent G., and Upham, Steadman 2001 Political Hierarchies and Organizational Strategies in the Puebloan Southwest. American Antiquity 65:440470.Google Scholar
Fleming, David E. 2004 Democracy’s Ancient Ancestors. Mari and Early Collective Governance. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Fowler, William R. Jr., Beekman, Christopher S., and Pickering, Robert B. 2006 Introduction: Special Section on Mortuary Practices and Shaft Tombs in Western Mexico: An Homenaje to Phil Weigand. Ancient Mesoamerica 17:231233.Google Scholar
Freidel, David, and Scheie, Linda 1989 Dead Kings and Living Temples: Dedication and Termination Rituals among the Ancient Maya. In Word and Image in Maya Culture, Explorations in Language, Writing, and Representation, edited by William Hanks and Don Rice, pp. 233243. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Furst, Peter 1965 Shaft Tombs, Shell Trumpets, and Shamanism: A Culture-Historical Approach to Problems in West Mexican Archaeology. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Galván Villegas, Luis Javier 1976 Rescate Arqueológico en el Fraccionamiento Tabachines, Zapopan, Jalisco. Cuadernos de los Centros No. 28, Instituto Nacional de Antropologiía e Historia, México.Google Scholar
Galván Villegas, Luis Javier 1991 Las Tumbas de Tiro del Valle de Atemajac. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, México, D.F. Google Scholar
Gillespie, Susan 2000 Beyond Kinship: An Introduction. In Beyond Kinship. Social and Material Reproduction in House Societies, edited by Rosemary A. Joyce and Susan D. Gillespie, pp. 121. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Lynne 1981 One Dimension Archaeology and Multi-Dimensional People: Spatial Organisation and Mortuary Analysis. In The Archaeology of Death, edited by Robert Chapman, Ian Kinnes, and Klavs Randsborg, pp. 5369. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Graham, Mark Miller 1998 The Iconography of Rulership in Ancient West Mexico. In Ancient West Mexico. Art of the Unknown Past, edited by Richard F. Townsend, pp. 191203. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.Google Scholar
Headrick, Annabeth 1999 The Street of the Dead, It Really Was: Mortuary Bundles at Teotihuacan. Ancient Mesoamerica 10:6985.Google Scholar
Headrick, Annabeth 2002 Gardening with the Great Goddess at Teotihuacan. In Heart of Creation: The Mesoamerican world and the legacy of Linda Scheie, edited by Andrea Stone, pp. 83100. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.Google Scholar
Jennings, Sarah 2008 Variaciones en la arquitectura y función de los guachimontones en el sitio de Navajas. In La Tradición Teuchitlán: Un Síntesis Basado en las Excavaciones de los Guachimontones y Navajas, Jalisco, edited by Phil C. Weigand, Christopher S. Beekman, and Rodrigo Esparza López, pp. 235250. Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora, México.Google Scholar
Kan, Michael, Meighan, Clement, and Nicholson, H. B. 1970 Sculpture of Ancient West Mexico: Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima. Los Angeles County Museum of Art.Google Scholar
Kelly, Isabel T. 1980 Ceramic Sequence in Colima: Capacha, an Early Phase. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Kelley, J. Charles 1974 Speculations on the Culture History of Northwestern Mesoamerica. In The Archaeology of West Mexico, edited by Betty Bell, pp. 1939. Sociedad de Estudios Avanzados del Occidente de México, Ajijic.Google Scholar
Liot, Catherine, Reveles, Javier, and Acosta, Rosario 2006 Grupo A-Área III: Inhumaciones del Preclásico Medio. In Transformaciones socioculturales y tecnológicas en el sitio de La Peña, Cuenca de Sayula, Jalisco, edited by Catherine Liot, Susana Ramírez, Javier Reveles and Otto Schöndube, pp. 265289. Universidad de Guadalajara, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Guadalajara.Google Scholar
Long, Stanley V. 1966 Archaeology of the Municipio de Etzatlán, Jalisco. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles.Google Scholar
López M., Lorenza, y Ramos de la Vega, Jorge 2000 La excavatión de la tumba de Huitzilapa. In El antiguo Occidente de México: arte y arqueología de un pasado desconocido, edited by Richard Townsend, pp. 5774. La Secretaría de Cultura del Estado de Jalisco, Guadalajara.Google Scholar
Manzanilla, Linda 1996 Corporate Groups and Domestic Activities at Teotihuacan. Latin American Antiquity 7:228246.Google Scholar
McAnany, Patricia A. 1995 Living with the Ancestors. Kinship and Kingship in Ancient Maya Society. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Mcintosh, Susan Keech 1999 Pathways to Complexity: An African Perspective. In Beyond Chiefdoms: Pathways to Complexity in Africa, edited by Susan Keech McIntosh, pp. 130. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Millon, Rene 1981 Teotihuacan: City, State, and Civilization. In Supplement to the Handbook of Middle American Indians, Vol. I, Archaeology, edited by Jeremy A. Sabloff, pp. 198243. University of Texas Press, Austin.Google Scholar
Mills, Barbara J. 2000 Alternative Models, Alternative Strategies: Leadership in the Prehispanic Southwest. In Alternative Leadership Strategies in the Prehispanic Southwest, edited by Barbara J. Mills, pp. 318. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Morris, Ian 1991 The Archaeology of Ancestors: The Saxe/Goldstein Hypothesis Revisited. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 1:14769.Google Scholar
Mountjoy, Joseph B. 1989 Algunas observaciones sobre el desarrollo del Preclásico en la llanura costera del Occidente. In El Preclásico o Formativo: Avances y Perspectivas, edited by Martha Carmona Macías, pp. 1126. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Míxico, D.F. Google Scholar
Mountjoy, Joseph B., Luhr, James, Sorensen, Sorena, and Mountjoy, Nathan 2004 Social and Cultural Implications of Jadetite and Iron Pyrite Jewelry recovered from the Middle Formative Cemetery at El Pantano, Jalisco, Mexico. Paper presented at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Montreal.Google Scholar
Mulhare, Eileen M. 1996 Barrio matters: Toward an Ethnology of Mesoamerican Customary Social Units. Ethnology 35:93107.Google Scholar
Nelson, Ben A. 2004 Elite Residences in West Mexico. In Palaces of the Ancient New World, edited by Susan T. Evans and Joanne Pillsbury, pp. 5982. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Ohnersorgen, Michael, and Varien, Mark 1996 Formal Architecture and Settlement Organization in Ancient West Mexico. Ancient Mesoamerica 7(1):103120.Google Scholar
Morales, Oliveros, Arturo, José 2004 Hacedores de Tumbas en El Opeño, Michoacán. El Colegio de Michoacán y H. Ayuntamiento de Jacona, Zamora.Google Scholar
O’Shea, John 1984 Mortuary Variability. An Archaeological Investigation. Academic Press, Orlando.Google Scholar
Parker Pearson, Mike 1999 The Archaeology of Death and Burial. Sutton Publishing, Phoenix Mill, U.K. Google Scholar
Pasztory, Esther 1997 Teotihuacan. An Experiment in Living. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.Google Scholar
Pickering, Robert B., and Cabrero, Maria Teresa 1998 Mortuary Practices in the Shaft Tomb Region. In Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, edited by Richard F. Townsend, pp. 7187. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.Google Scholar
Porter, Anne 2002 Communities in Conflict. Death and the Contest for Social Order in the Euphrates River Valley. Near Eastern Archaeology 65:156173.Google Scholar
Porter, Muriel Noé 1956 Excavations at Chupicuaro, Guanajuato, Mexico. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 46, Part 5. American Philosophical Society, New York.Google Scholar
Ramos, Jorge, and López M., Lorenza 1996 Datos preliminares sobre el descubrimiento de una tumba de tiro en el sitio de Huitzilapa, Jalisco. Ancient Mesoamerica 7:121134.Google Scholar
Saxe, Arthur A. 1970 Social Dimensions of Mortuary Practices. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, University Microfilms.Google Scholar
Schoenwetter, James, and Benz, Bruce 2004 Paleoethnobotanical Studies at Llano Grande, Jalisco, Mexico. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Montreal, Canada.Google Scholar
Sempowski, Martha L., and Spence, Michael W. 1994 Mortuary Practices and Skeletal Remains at Teotihuacan. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Sugiyama, Saburo 1993 World View Materialized at Teotihuacan, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity 4:103129.Google Scholar
Sugiyama, Saburo 2005 Human Sacrifice, Militarism, and Rulership: Materialization of State Ideology at the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, Teotihuacan. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Taube, Karl 1998 The Presence of Teotihuacan in Ancient West Mexico. Paper presented at symposium entitled Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.Google Scholar
Townsend, Richard F. 1998 Before Gods, Before Kings. In Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, edited by Richard F. Townsend, pp. 107135. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.Google Scholar
Van Zantwijk, Rudolf A. M. 1985 Aztec Arrangement; The Social History of Pre-Spanish Mexico. Civilizations of the American Indian Series vol. 167. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman Google Scholar
Von Winning, Hasso 1969 Pre-Columbian Art of Mexico and Central America. Thames and Hudson, London.Google Scholar
Von Winning, Hasso, and Hammer, Olga 1972 Anecdotal Sculpture of Ancient West Mexico. Ethnic Arts Council of Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Weigand, Phil C. 1974 The Ahualulco Site and the Shaft-Tomb Complex of the Etzatlán Area. In The Archaeology of West México, Betty Bell, ed., pp. 120131. Sociedad de Estudios Avanzados del Occidente de México, Ajijic, México.Google Scholar
Weigand, Phil C. 1975 Circular Ceremonial Structure Complexes in the Highlands of Western Mexico. In Archaeological Frontiers: Papers on New World High Cultures in Honor of J. Charles Kelley, edited by Robert Pickering, pp. 183227. Southern Illinois University Museum Studies No.4, Carbondale.Google Scholar
Weigand, Phil C. 1985 Evidence for Complex Societies during the Western Mesoamerican Classic Period. In The Archaeology of West and Northwest Mesoamerica, edited by Michael S. Foster and Phil C. Weigand, pp. 4791. Westview Press, Boulder.Google Scholar
Weigand, Phil C. 1996a The Architecture of the Teuchitlán Tradition of Mexico’s Occidente. Ancient Mesoamerica 7:91101.Google Scholar
Weigand, Phil C. 1996b La evolución y ocaso de un núcleo de civilización: La tradición Teuchitlán y la arqueología de Jalisco. In Las Cuencas del Occidente de México: Epoca Prehispánica. edited by Eduardo Williams and Phil C. Weigand, pp. 185246. Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora.Google Scholar
Weigand, Phil C. 2002 La Tradición Teuchitlán: Las Temporadas de Excavación de 1999–2000, en los Guachimontones. In Estudio Histórico y Cultural sobre los Huicholes, pp. 129148. Universidad de Guadalajara, Campus Universitario del Norte, Colotlán.Google Scholar
Weigand, Phil C. 2007 States in Prehispanic Western Mexico. In The Political Economy of Ancient Mesoamerica: Transformations during the Formative and Classic Periods, edited by Vernon L. Scarborough and John E. Clark. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, in press.Google Scholar
Weigand, Phil C. 2008 La tradición Teuchitlán del Occidente de Mexico. Excavaciones en Los Guachimontones de Teuchitlán, Jalisco. In La Tradición Teuchitlán: Un Síntesis Basado en las Excavaciones de los Guachimontones y Navajas, Jalisco, edited by Phil C. Weigand, Christopher S. Beekman, and Rodrigo Esparza López, pp. 2962. Colegio de Michoacán, Zamora.Google Scholar
Weigand, Phil C. and Beekman, Christopher S. 1998 The Teuchitlán Tradition: Rise of a Statelike Society. In Ancient West Mexico: Art and Archaeology of the Unknown Past, edited by Richard Townsend, pp. 3551. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.Google Scholar
Witmore, Christopher L. 1998 Sacred Sun Centers. In Ancient West Mexico. Art of the Unknown Past, edited by Richard F. Townsend, pp. 137149. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.Google Scholar