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Political Boundaries and Political Structure: The Limits of the Teuchitlan Tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

Christopher S. Beekman
Christopher S. Beekman
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37235, USA
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Abstract

Many social scientists have proposed a relationship between the structure of a boundary and that of the system it delimits. Substantial anthropological and historical research has found the same tendency in analyses of traditional political structure. A model based on these findings was applied to the Teuchitlan tradition of Classic-period West Mexico, a region where the degree of political complexity and unification has been a subject of debate. A focused study of the eastern boundary of the Teuchitlan Valley was undertaken to examine the nature of its political structure. Fieldwork located a number of defensive features forming a well-structured boundary system in the La Venta corridor that connects the Teuchitlan and Atemajac Valleys. Other fortifications ringing the Teuchitlan Valley strongly suggest that a defensive network had been established to monitor access into the core of the Teuchitlan area. A unitary, territorial form of administration (following the work of Southall and Luttwak) is proposed as a model for political dynamics in the core region, but a review of the evidence for the more-distant Teuchitlan architecture suggests that, at most, only a hegemonic form of control more akin to that of the segmentary state was exercised outside of the core valley. A connection with long-distance resource acquisition is possible, but highly speculative at present.

Type
Special Section: Recent Research in the Lake Basins of Highland Jalisco
Information
Ancient Mesoamerica , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , Spring 1996 , pp. 135 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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