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Artisans, chiefs, and feasts: Class...

Wells, Eric Christian.

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Artisans, chiefs, and feasts: Classic period social dynamics at El Coyote, Honduras.

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Artisans, chiefs, and feasts: Classic period social dynamics at El Coyote, Honduras./
Author:	Wells, Eric Christian.
Description:	555 p.
Notes:	Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 64-03, Section: A, page: 0964.
Contained By:	Dissertation Abstracts International64-03A.
Subject:	Anthropology, Archaeology. -
Online resource:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=3084690

Artisans, chiefs, and feasts: Classic period social dynamics at El Coyote, Honduras.
Wells, Eric Christian.

Artisans, chiefs, and feasts: Classic period social dynamics at El Coyote, Honduras. - 555 p.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 64-03, Section: A, page: 0964.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Arizona State University, 2003.

This dissertation explores the relationship between labor mobilization and political development in the context of communal feasting among prehispanic chiefdoms in Southeastern Mesoamerica. The exploration is shaped largely by the need for a better understanding of the ways in which debt relations are correlated with social differentiation and inequality, as well as the need for alternative explanations for debt relations. Shifting among ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and archaeological datasets, this dissertation identifies work-party feasts as socially acceptable practices in non-state societies that allow individuals to by-pass egalitarian ethics and simultaneously to derive social power by mobilizing surplus labor. Consequently, it is argued that in such societies aggrandizing behavior does not necessarily result in the creation of reciprocalreturn obligations. Instead, work-party feasts and other communal ritual practices that permit morally acceptable conversions between symbolic and economic capital can serve as significant sources of social power for political aspirants. This study focuses on the case of El Coyote, the Classic period (ca. AD 300--1000) capital settlement of the lower Cacaulapa River Valley in northwestern Honduras, where archaeological data from two seasons of excavation in and around the site's main civic-ceremonial plaza are evaluated to infer the presence and organization of craft manufacture, feasting, and ritual practices. As tools of political and economic power for El Coyote's ruling elite, these activities may have been employed independently of one another or may have articulated in complex ways. One way that these practices may have intersected in elite attempts to fashion social hierarchy was through the centralization and control of surplus labor during community-wide plaza activities in which feasts and other ritual practices served as inducements for individuals to participate in activities calculated to enhance chiefly productivity and reinforce chiefly legitimacy. These findings have several implications for understanding social dynamics in pre-modern, non-state societies. The manufacture and circulation of craft m goods as components of ritually prescribed work-party feasts can play an important role in the expansion of political patronage networks. In addition, control over the timing, organization, and management of work-party feasts has the potential to confer a significant degree of situational authority on certain individuals in the community, which can be sustained for longer periods in times of stress, conflict, or the threat of violence. Significantly, these characteristics can combine to create conditions conducive to the emergence of enduring, multigenerational social and political hierarchies.Subjects--Topical Terms:

622985
Anthropology, Archaeology.

Artisans, chiefs, and feasts: Classic period social dynamics at El Coyote, Honduras.
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100 1 $a Wells, Eric Christian. $3 1948924
245 1 0 $a Artisans, chiefs, and feasts: Classic period social dynamics at El Coyote, Honduras.
300 $a 555 p.
500 $a Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 64-03, Section: A, page: 0964.
500 $a Adviser: Ben A. Nelson.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--Arizona State University, 2003.
520 $a This dissertation explores the relationship between labor mobilization and political development in the context of communal feasting among prehispanic chiefdoms in Southeastern Mesoamerica. The exploration is shaped largely by the need for a better understanding of the ways in which debt relations are correlated with social differentiation and inequality, as well as the need for alternative explanations for debt relations. Shifting among ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and archaeological datasets, this dissertation identifies work-party feasts as socially acceptable practices in non-state societies that allow individuals to by-pass egalitarian ethics and simultaneously to derive social power by mobilizing surplus labor. Consequently, it is argued that in such societies aggrandizing behavior does not necessarily result in the creation of reciprocalreturn obligations. Instead, work-party feasts and other communal ritual practices that permit morally acceptable conversions between symbolic and economic capital can serve as significant sources of social power for political aspirants. This study focuses on the case of El Coyote, the Classic period (ca. AD 300--1000) capital settlement of the lower Cacaulapa River Valley in northwestern Honduras, where archaeological data from two seasons of excavation in and around the site's main civic-ceremonial plaza are evaluated to infer the presence and organization of craft manufacture, feasting, and ritual practices. As tools of political and economic power for El Coyote's ruling elite, these activities may have been employed independently of one another or may have articulated in complex ways. One way that these practices may have intersected in elite attempts to fashion social hierarchy was through the centralization and control of surplus labor during community-wide plaza activities in which feasts and other ritual practices served as inducements for individuals to participate in activities calculated to enhance chiefly productivity and reinforce chiefly legitimacy. These findings have several implications for understanding social dynamics in pre-modern, non-state societies. The manufacture and circulation of craft m goods as components of ritually prescribed work-party feasts can play an important role in the expansion of political patronage networks. In addition, control over the timing, organization, and management of work-party feasts has the potential to confer a significant degree of situational authority on certain individuals in the community, which can be sustained for longer periods in times of stress, conflict, or the threat of violence. Significantly, these characteristics can combine to create conditions conducive to the emergence of enduring, multigenerational social and political hierarchies.
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650 4 $a Anthropology, Archaeology. $3 622985
650 4 $a Anthropology, Cultural. $3 735016
650 4 $a Agriculture, Soil Science. $3 1017824
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710 2 0 $a Arizona State University. $3 1017445
773 0 $t Dissertation Abstracts International $g 64-03A.
790 1 0 $a Nelson, Ben A., $e advisor
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791 $a Ph.D.
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