Utilizing data from six seasons of field research, this article focuses on the question of the technology and social organization of intensive agricultural production in the Andean state of Tiwanaku. Recent literature in Andean archaeology and ethnohistory asserts the dominance of local kin groups in the organization of agricultural production rather than supracommunity state authority. The analysis presented here takes issue with this perspective as applied to the core territory of the Tiwanaku state during the period from ca. A. D. 400 to 1000 (Tiwanaku IV-V). I conclude that in this period: (1) the technology of Tiwanaku intensive agricultural production turned on the creation of an artificial regional hydrological regime of canals, aqueducts, and groundwater regulation articulated with massive raised-field systems, and (2) the organization of agricultural production in this core territory entailed structured, hierarchical interaction between urban and rural settlements characterized by a substantial degree of political centralization and the mobilization of labor by social principles that reached beyond simple kinship relations.

This article reports on archaeological and geomorphological research carried out by the 1988 Río Verde Formative Project in the lower Río Verde Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico. The research suggests that the region was only sparsely inhabited prior to 500 B. C. During the Late/Terminal Formative (400 B. C.-A. D. 250), however, survey data suggest that the lower Río Verde Valley experienced considerable population growth. Excavations at the sites of Cerro de la Cruz and Río Viejo yielded evidence for emerging status inequalities during the Late Formative leading eventually to the rise of complex social organization by the Classic period (A. D. 250-900). Two preliminary explanations are offered for the seemingly late occurrence of large populations with complex social organization in the region. The explanations focus on environmental change and interregional social interaction, respectively. Evidence for the exploitation of coastal habitats is also discussed, since the use of marine and estuarine resources could alter the implications of both explanations of societal change.

This paper examines household architectural variability within the residential area of Sayil, Yucatán, Mexico. Labor-investment figures for residential architecture are used as a means of categorizing variability. A rank ordering of vault area and per-capita labor investment is achieved and an architectural wealth hierarchy is presented for the residential area of Sayil. This hierarchy is placed in the context of Maya land-tenure systems. It is argued that large, wealthy households may have been “first-founder” families in the Sayil valley and thus were in a position to effectively control and monopolize land and other productive resources, including human labor, for their own economic advantage.

Results of 16 years of archaeological research at Copán, Honduras, based on different methods and theoretical perspectives, can be used in combination to better understand the developmental trajectory of Classic period sociopolitical evolution in the Copán Valley. Although research continues, findings to date demonstrate the advantage of conjunctive research that applies archaeological, epigraphic, and iconographic data in a crosscutting, self-corrective strategy. While the use of any single data set may produce incomplete or inaccurate conclusions, as in the use of settlement data alone to reconstruct Middle Classic population size and assess the developmental status of the Copán polity, more complete conclusions can be reached by applying a fuller range of data from excavations in both the valley and Acropolis of Copán's urban core, along with epigraphic and iconographic evidence. These combined data show that from its beginning in the fifth century, the Classic Copán polity was ruled by powerful kings who controlled large populations and, quite likely, an extensive territory that may have included the site of Quiriguá in the Motagua Valley to the north.

At the other end of the developmental trajectory, the combination of research findings from the Acropolis and surrounding elite residential compounds and valley settlement data, has led to a redefinition of the Classic “collapse” at Copán, now seen as a long-enduring process involving the decentralization of political authority, the end of centralized dynastic rule, and gradual depopulation of the valley. This reconstruction, in combination with evidence for the end of the Classic period at other Lowland Maya sites, supports the long-standing conclusion that there was no single cause for the collapse, but rather that a complex and long-operating series of processes was responsible for the end of lowland Classic Maya civilization.

Con el título “La pintura occidental de felino de Cerro Sechin: ¿Es original o falsa?” Bonavia (1990) sugiere una alternativa arbitraria. Si bien es válida su crítica del método de restauración aplicado, no es suficiente para sostener que la obra merezca tacharse de falsificación. Al ser examinadas sine ira et studio las fotos reproducidas por Bonavia (1990), más bien demuestran que en 1971 todavía estaba conservada la parte inferior del mural original, sobre el cual se efectuaron en aquel año, y el siguiente, ensayos no muy acertados de restauración junto con necesarias, y cuidadosas medidas de consolidación.

En contestación a la nota de Bischof (1991) refutando nuevamente la aseveración de Bonavia (1990), sobre la falsedad de la pintura occidental de felino de Cerro Sechín, el autor se reafirma en su posición presentando la argumentación que considera pertinente para demonstrar lo que él juzga es el error de Bischof.