Interregional Interaction and Social Change at El Dornajo

Sarah R. Taylor

A chapter in Political Economy, Neoliberalism, and the Prehistoric Economies of Latin America, 2012, pp 291-325 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: Purpose – This chapter examines the expectation that because the developmental trajectories of cultural frontiers are often seen as being tied to that of their more complexly developed neighbors, increases in interregional interaction provide frontier communities with previously unavailable political-economic opportunities that promote social change. Design/methodology/approach – This expectation is examined using data from archaeological excavations at the site of El Dornajo in southwestern Ecuador. Models based on external conditions like interregional interaction are considered alongside those based on internal conditions like environmental perturbations. Findings – The results suggest that increased interregional interaction promoted the emergence of a regional prestige economy that symbolically legitimated (and perhaps made possible) the co-option of traditional risk buffering strategies during a time when the availability of subsistence resources had changed due to local conditions. Practical implications – This chapter supports the notion that the emergence of institutionalized inequality requires control over both internal and external relationships. Furthermore, it suggests that examining models based on both internal and external conditions of change may help to explain the timing and pace of that change. Originality/value – Much of the archaeological literature is dichotomized between models based on internal conditions and those based on external conditions. Few archaeologists would take exception to the notion that both conditions matter, but equally few archaeologists are looking at both kinds of conditions in the same case study.

Keywords: Interregional interaction; prestige economy; Ecuador; social change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:reanzz:s0190-1281(2012)0000032015

DOI: 10.1108/S0190-1281(2012)0000032015

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