Linda M. Nicholas

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on the BAR Digital platform. Archaeological investigations at the prehispanic Ejutla site in Oaxaca, Mexico, have had a foundational role in reframing our perspectives on Mesoamerican economies, specifically craft specialization. This volume reports on the excavations of a residential complex located at the southern limits of the Valley of Oaxaca system, where evidence was recovered for multiple craft activities associated with a single non-elite domestic unit. The residential occupants crafted a variety of ornaments from marine shell, mostly sourced to the Pacific Coast, but few were consumed by the householders themselves. In addition, the Ejutla craftworkers produced a range of ceramic utilitarian vessels, including domestic wares and figurines, as well as small lapidary objects. Many of the craft goods produced were destined for exchange, circulating in both local and longer-distance networks. The findings have laid a basis for new theorizing on prehispanic economic production and the revision of prior notions that presumed principally local economies, in which specialized production for exchange was centered in nondomestic workshops.

A comprehensive account of a pioneering archaeological project in the province of Shandong that transformed understandings of regional settlement patterns From 1995 to 2007, researchers from China and the United States conducted a systematic, full-coverage regional archaeological survey in southeastern Shandong Province, China, covering an area of more than 1,400 square kilometers. This pioneering multiyear international project transformed the archaeological understanding of regional settlement patterns from the Neolithic to the Han period in southeastern Shandong. As an update of the 2012 synthesis published in Chinese, this volume is the most detailed account of the project in English. The team discovered many new sites, including the earliest known Neolithic settlements in the area, and revealed distinctly different regional settlement patterns in the hinterlands of the two largest late Neolithic sites, Liangchengzhen and Yaowangcheng. The book includes field procedures, methods of analysis, and descriptions of major sites generously illustrated with maps as well as photographs of key artifacts and archaeological localities. Distributed for the Yale Peabody Museum

Over two thousand years ago, Oaxaca, Mexico, was the site of one of the New World's earliest episodes of primary state formation and urbanism, and today it is one of the world's archaeologically best-studied regions. This volume, which thoroughly revises and updates the first edition, provides a highly readable yet comprehensive path to acquaint readers with one of the earliest and best-known examples of Native American state formation and its consequences as seen from the perspectives of urbanism, technology, demography, commerce, households, and religion and ritual. Written by prominent archaeological researchers who have devoted decades to Oaxacan research and to the development of suitable social theory, the book places ancient Oaxaca within the context of the history of ideas that have addressed the causes and consequences of social evolutionary change. It also critically evaluates the potential applicability of more recent thinking about state building grounded in collective action and related theories.

Over two thousand years ago, Oaxaca, Mexico, was the site of one of the New World's earliest episodes of primary state formation and urbanism, and today it is one of the world's archaeologically best-studied regions. This volume, which thoroughly revises and updates the first edition, provides a highly readable yet comprehensive path to acquaint readers with one of the earliest and best-known examples of Native American state formation and its consequences as seen from the perspectives of urbanism, technology, demography, commerce, households, and religion and ritual. Written by prominent archaeological researchers who have devoted decades to Oaxacan research and to the development of suitable social theory, the book places ancient Oaxaca within the context of the history of ideas that have addressed the causes and consequences of social evolutionary change. It also critically evaluates the potential applicability of more recent thinking about state building grounded in collective action and related theories.