The collective logic of pre-modern cities

Blanton, Richard E.; Fargher, Lane F.

doi:10.1080/00438243.2011.607722

Cited by 67 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 25 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Following this intensification in the economic networks associated with regional goods, the urban revolution in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca saw the creation of hundreds of fortified hill‐towns, designed for mutual defense as community architectural projects . It is clear from excavations at sites such as El Palmillo that networks of residential terraces required supra‐household labor to interconnect and maintain terrace walls . Here, a town of some 5,000 occupants constructed 1,400 terraces tightly packed in one km 2 of occupation (Fig.…”

Section: Subsistence Exchange and Political Financing: An Applicatimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This example relates to a general trend in Mesoamerica and in other cases of premodern urbanism whereby neighborhoods in settlements with denser populations appear to have fostered more collective action than did low‐density urbanism . The proposal can also be quantitatively evaluated by comparing houses or their associated holdings, as Smith and colleagues have done recently by using a sample from central Mexico.…”

Section: Subsistence Exchange and Political Financing: An Applicatimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…56 It is clear from excavations at sites such as El Palmillo that networks of residential terraces required supra-household labor to interconnect and maintain terrace walls. 57 Here, a town of some 5,000 occupants constructed 1,400 terraces tightly packed in one km 2 of occupation ( Fig. 2).…”

Section: Higher Expenditures On Public Goodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Cooperation, collective action, and the archeology of large‐scale societies

Carballo¹,

Feinman²

2016

Evolutionary Anthropology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Archeologists investigating the emergence of large‐scale societies in the past have renewed interest in examining the dynamics of cooperation as a means of understanding societal change and organizational variability within human groups over time. Unlike earlier approaches to these issues, which used models designated voluntaristic or managerial, contemporary research articulates more explicitly with frameworks for cooperation and collective action used in other fields, thereby facilitating empirical testing through better definition of the costs, benefits, and social mechanisms associated with success or failure in coordinated group action. Current scholarship is nevertheless bifurcated along lines of epistemology and scale, which is understandable but problematic for forging a broader, more transdisciplinary field of cooperation studies. Here, we point to some areas of potential overlap by reviewing archeological research that places the dynamics of social cooperation and competition in the foreground of the emergence of large‐scale societies, which we define as those having larger populations, greater concentrations of political power, and higher degrees of social inequality. We focus on key issues involving the communal‐resource management of subsistence and other economic goods, as well as the revenue flows that undergird political institutions. Drawing on archeological cases from across the globe, with greater detail from our area of expertise in Mesoamerica, we offer suggestions for strengthening analytical methods and generating more transdisciplinary research programs that address human societies across scalar and temporal spectra.

show abstract

Section: Subsistence Exchange and Political Financing: An Applicatimentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Subsistence Exchange and Political Financing: An Applicatimentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Cooperation, collective action, and the archeology of large‐scale societies

Carballo¹,

Feinman²

2016

Evolutionary Anthropology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The record offers no simple correlation between a particular physical form and social patterns or aspirations" (p. 221). While scholarly understanding of the social and political contexts of grid planning has increased in recent years (Blanton, 2016;Blanton & Fargher, 2011;Rose-Redwood, 2008;Smith, 2007), a method for inferring governance processes from urban layouts is still lacking. While the construction of a fully gridded city like Teotihuacan undoubtedly required a strong central government (Smith, 2007), such political power could have been wielded by either an autocratic or a collective regime.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Teotihuacan Anomaly: The Historical Trajectory of Urban Design in Ancient Central Mexico

Smith

2017

Open Archaeology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:The ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan had the most aberrant design of any city in ancient Mesoamerica. I examine similarities and differences between the design of Teotihuacan and other Mesoamerican cities. During the Preclassic period, a set of common Mesoamerican planning principles emerged. The designers of Teotihuacan rejected most of these principles in favor of a new and radical set of planning concepts. After the fall of Teotihuacan, subsequent urban planners ignored the Teotihuacan principles and returned to ancient Mesoamerican planning ideas. Elements of the Teotihuacan plan did not resurface until the Mexica of Tenochtitlan revived them for a specific goal. The historical sequence of central Mexican city layouts highlights the anomalous character of Teotihuacan's principles of urban design within the canons of ancient Mesoamerican urbanism.

show abstract

“…Why did the Classic Maya elite invest so much on the trappings of status, royal performance, and art masterpieces restricted to the few, and so relatively little on public goods (beyond defense)? 15 To examine these issues, the arguments must be extended beyond ideological spheres and to matters economic. To account for both the self-aggrandizing nature of Maya lords compared to most pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican rulers, and how they were unable or unwilling to offer subaltern householders much in the way of public goods (e.g., wide thoroughfares, broad open plazas), 16 we might look toward the ways in which lordly power was funded.…”

Section: Economic Underpinningsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-visioning Classic Maya Polities

Feinman

2022

Lat. American Res. Rev.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The collective logic of pre-modern cities

Cited by 67 publications

References 25 publications

Cooperation, collective action, and the archeology of large‐scale societies

Cooperation, collective action, and the archeology of large‐scale societies

The Teotihuacan Anomaly: The Historical Trajectory of Urban Design in Ancient Central Mexico

Re-visioning Classic Maya Polities

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About