Assessment of the nature of intrasocietal relationships in the context of the origin of state-level power is a critical area of study within anthropological archaeology. A well-established model of such emergent political relations (Wittfogel 1957) posits that differential access to land, coupled with intensification of agriculture, places common farmers in a position of inferiority, and thus subjects them to exploitation by the elite controllers of intensive agriculture. The central thesis of this article is that the initial relationship between the elite controllers and the common laborers in an intensive agricultural system was mutually beneficial, with the state only capable of exercising more exploitative power some generations after the establishment of intensive agriculture. I argue that the economic measure of marginal productivity may best reflect each farmer’s personal contribution to agriculture, and that, in a largely kin-based system, it is difficult for the emergent elite to exercise exploitative power when the marginal productivity of labor is high. I support the thesis on the basis of the simulated trajectory of marginal productivity, which indicates that marginal product increases with intensification. I explore the model further in a consideration of the rise of the Classic Maya kingdom of Copán, Honduras.

Ancient sources of salt have been revealed by underwater archaeology along the south coast of Belize. A relative rise in sea level of about 1 m at the end of the Classic period (ca. A. D. 900) submerged ancient Maya settlements and transformed the modern landscape by reducing the amount of available land and by changing the vegetation. The discovery of submerged archaeological sites and their dating by associated ceramics and radiocarbon date determination documents the sea level rise. Salt production by the sal cocida or boiling method at the underwater site of Stingray Lagoon and at other specialized salt production sites provided salt for coastal use and inland transport and diminished the need for long-distance import of this basic human requirement. This paper describes salt-making artifacts as well as salt production. The lack of animal bones at the Stingray Lagoon site where other organic material was preserved indicates that salt was not produced for salt-drying fish. Evidence that salt was obtained from the Belizean coast instead of from the northern Yucatán coast is in line with the view of ancient Maya economy in which basic subsistence resources were produced locally whereas long-distance trade was concentrated on elite or ceremonial resources and goods.

The puquios of Nasca are a system of subterranean filtration galleries that provide water for irrigation and domestic uses in the middle portions of the Nasca, Taruga, and Las Trancas valleys of the Río Grande de Nasca drainage of the south coast of Peru. At present 36 puquios function in these three valleys; in the past their number may have exceeded 50. We discuss the formal characteristics and the construction of the puquios, and describe each of the extant puquios. The results of archaeological settlement surveys conducted in the three valleys indicate that the puquios did not yet exist in Early Nasca (Early Intermediate Period 2-4) times, but were almost certainly in use by the time of the Inka conquest of the region in the late fifteenth century. We suggest that the initial construction and use of the puquios may have occurred as early as Nasca 5 times, and probably not later than Late Nasca (Early Intermediate Period 6-7) times.

In this article I demonstrate the utility of an historical study of social change by examining the development of political authority on the Peruvian north coast during the Moche period through its symbols of power. We too often equate the material record with “archaeological culture,” assume that it reflects broad cultural reality, and interpret it by reference to general evolutionary models. Here I reassess Moche society within its historic context by examining the relationship between underlying social structure and short-term processes that shaped Moche political formation, and reach very different conclusions. I see the “diagnostic” Moche material record primarily as the symbolic manifestation of a distinctive political ideology whose character was historically constituted in an ongoing cultural tradition. Aspiring rulers used ideology to manipulate cultural principles in their interests and thus mediate the paradox between exclusive power and holistic Andean social structure which created the dynamic for change. A historic study allows us to identify the symbolic and ritual mechanisms that socially constituted Moche ideology, and reveals a pattern of diversity in time and space that was the product of differential choice by local rulers, a pattern that cannot be seen within a theoretical approach that emphasizes general evolutionary or materialist factors.

Recent excavations at the Initial Period (1800-900 B. C.) site of Pampa de las Llamas-Moxeke in the Casma Valley, Peru, have revealed the presence of an I-shaped court that is architecturally very similar to prehistoric I-shaped ball courts commonly found in Mesoamerica. Although it is possible that there is a connection between the I-shaped court at Pampa de las Llamas-Moxeke and those of Mesoamerica, such a connection appears unlikely given the isolated nature of the former court in terms of time (700 years too early) and space (2,500 km too far south). It seems much more probable that this unique I-shaped court housed a special religious or secular activity within Pampa de las Llamas-Moxeke and represents a possible unrecognized facet of early complex society during the Initial Period.