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Disembedded Capitals Reconsidered

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Robert S. Santley
Robert S. Santley*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131
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Abstract

The concept of a disembedded capital is viewed as a specious construct. The logical foundations of disembeddedness of political authority from local commerical hierarchies are viewed as largely untenable, at least in prehispanic Mesoamerica, and the close parallels between Monte Albán and Teotihuacán in terms of general site location, access to prime agricultural land, level of craft specialization required to meet local needs, and local market patterns suggest that both sites had similar roles with respect to local central-place support hierarchies. An alternative evolutionary model is then offered, one which relates developments manifest in the Basin of Mexico and in the Valley of Oaxaca to an economic and political strategy which seeks to minimize labor input and amount of systemic risk.

Type
Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , January 1980 , pp. 132 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1980

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References

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