The power of prestige: competitive generosity and the emergence of rank societies in lowland Mesoamerica

Climate drying and associated forest decline in the lowlands of northern Guatemala during the late Holocene

“…Southerly migration of the mean position of the Atlantic ITCZ is controlled by different forcing mechanisms, such as i) reduction of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which decreases the cross-equatorial heat flux from the South to North Atlantic and strengthens the northeast trade winds (Timmermann et al, 2005; Cheng et al, 2007), ii) decreasing latitudinal gradients of the sea surface temperature (SST), associated with cooling of SST in the North Atlantic (Chiang and Bitz, 2005;Peterson and Haug, 2006), iii) increasing intensity of the annual cycle in the southern hemisphere tropics, associated with the ∼21,000-year precessional component of Milankovitch forcing (Hodell et al, 1991;Haug et al, 2001), iv) increasing land-sea ice cover in the Northern Hemisphere (Chiang and Bitz, 2005), v) weakening of the Caribbean Low-Level Jet (CLLJ) (Mestas-Nunez et al, 2007), vi) increased ENSO-variability in the tropical Pacific (Haug et al, 2001), vii) weakening of the Walker circulation (Stott et al, 2002), and/or viii) changes in the seasonal distribution of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) (Giannini et al, 2001). Regardless of the forcing mechanisms that dominated and ultimately caused the inferred climate shifts, we note that the drying trend registered in the Petén, and more broadly in equatorial regions of the Northern Hemisphere, parallels an increased commitment to maize-based food production and the emergence of hierarchically organized societies on the Pacific and Gulf Coasts of Mexico (Clark and Blake 1994;Pope et al 2001;Kennett et al, 2007) that later influenced similar cultural developments in the Maya lowlands (Rice, 1976;Rice and Rice, 1990;Neff et al 2006). …”

"The Only True People": Linking Maya Identities Past and Present

“…Beyond the work of Schortman and his colleagues, little discussion has been devoted to the inherently conflicting balance of affiliations affected by the Classic elite to maintain their prominence both locally and among elites from other centers (figure 8.1; Sharer and Golden 2004:42). On the one hand, Maya elites needed to participate in the shared elite culture linking them into spatially expansive salient identity networks (see Blanton et al 1996;Clark and Blake 1994;Schortman 1989:60). Manipulation and monopolization of this horizontal network were necessary for elites and rulers to differentiate themselves locally from non-elites and exclude them from positions of authority (ibid.).…”

Origem e evolução da desigualdade material hereditária: uma abordagem dos Sistemas Adaptativos Complexos

“…Algumas delas buscaram as causas dessa transição nas características individuais do H. sapiens BLAKE, 1994;WEBSTER, 1990), enquanto outras se voltaram para as possíveis causas dessa transição no ambiente, na ecologia e no clima (CARNEIRO, 1970;SHENNAN, 2011;SMITH et al, 2010). Entre elas, podem ser citadas as teorias da pressão populacional (KENNETT et al, 2008;NAROLL, 1956), da busca por prestígio (HAYDEN, 1995) e do uso de tecnologias de estocagem (ALLEN, 1997;BOIX, 2010).…”

“…A cultura da região definida por Andrefsky (2004) (Marx, 1867;Engels, 1884), o controle ideológico (Diamond, 1997;Earle, 1987Earle, , 1997, a guerra (Carneiro, 1970), a busca por prestígio (Clark & Blake, 1994) e o controle comercial (Smith et al, 2010 Todavia, isso não significa que Diamond (1997), ou outros dos autores citados, tenha procurado desenvolver uma teoria causal composta de diferentes parâmetros-chave para explicar os diversos fenômenos de origem da DMH.…”

“…Complementarmente, em termos sociais, notou-se que o processo de transformação das populações anteriormente igualitárias teria envolvido o crescimento populacional -fenômeno presente em ambos os estudos de caso -a partir de pequenos grupos compostos de algumas dezenas de indivíduos (ANDREFSKY, 2004;WILKINSON, 1990) Entretanto, as dinâmicas de fluxo de recursos dentro da população, o compartilhamento e a troca (BOWLES, SMITH;MULDER, 2010;GURVEN et al, 2010;MULDER et al, 2010;SHENK et al, 2010;SMITH et al, 2010a;SMITH et al, 2010b), assim como as relações de distribuição, competição e cooperação (CLARK; BLAKE, 1994;FRANGIPANE, 2007;HAYDEN, 1981;KAPLAN et al, 2009;KENNETT et al, 2008) nos pareceram plausíveis entre as populações materialmente igualitárias (Arnold, 2004, Sahlins 1972 Dadas as condições de inicialização do modelo, a dinâmica entre os indivíduos se dá através de sucessivas iterações ao longo do tempo, as quais seguem, todas, um mesmo caminho geral (Figura 5.1). Cada unidade temporal -dada a composição discreta do tempo -representa um passo (step) na realização da dinâmica, composta por duas mil unidades.…”