Analytical tools

Several analytical tools help us to arrive at the archaeological measures needed for examining political structure in the Rosario polity. Narrowing the earlier focus on general methodological difficulties (Chapter 4), my methodologically oriented discussion of analytical tools is geared even more specifically to the Rosario settlement record's qualities and possibilities. Nevertheless, the choices faced and the logic used for constructing analytical tools are common to many settlement studies of politics in ancient complex polities. The needed analytical tools consist of: a territorial subdivision of the valley, functional classifications of buildings, a site classification of dwellings, a hierarchical political classification of civicceremonial plazas, and a size classification of sites. Particular emphasis is placed on the widely relevant analytical importance of the relationship between political and size classifications of settlements.

Territorial subdivisions

The survey area is readily divisible into smaller districts defined topographically by ranges of low hills or constrictions in valley-floor width – i.e., one section in each valley half, and within each section a set of sub-basins termed pockets (Zorrillo, Nuestra Señora, Chihuahua, Momón, Rosario, Santa Ines North, Santa Ines South). Another district, the Midvalley Range, has a different character, covering part of the range of hills that bisects the valley. Because its settlement pattern is so different (de Montmollin n.d.a: ch. 5), the Midvalley Range is left out of most comparisons. A consistency in the number of political hierarchy levels within equivalent topographically defined districts (four levels in each section, three levels in five of seven pockets – Figure 5) suggests a correspondence of topographic and political boundaries and reinforces the district's analytical validity.