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Reconstructing Early Formative Village Organization in Oaxaca, Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Michael E. Whalen
Michael E. Whalen*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK 74104
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Abstract

Large-scale excavation data are used to reconstruct some of the organizational features of a small village of the Early Formative period (ca. 1500–850 B.C.) in the southern Mexican highlands. Data from the community's residential and cemetery zones are analyzed in consideration of (1) the nature and number of village components; and (2) methods used to integrate these components. It is argued that the community was organized around some form of lineal descent group, which held corporate title to essential resources. Low-level redistribution of foodstuffs and the display of supralocal symbols are also suggested to have been aspects of community organization. The data and interpretations of this investigation are compared to the results of Early Formative studies in other areas of highland Mesoamerica.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , January 1983 , pp. 17 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1983

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References

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