Household Archeology: Testing Models of Zonal Complementarity in the South Central Andes

Defining ethnicity in archeological settlements is a major methodological problem in the South Central Andes. In this region, pre-Hispanic political and economic organization has been understood within the theoretical framework known as zonal complementarity or verticality. Due to a process of direct colonization by independent polities in key ecological zones, these models are characterized by a striking regional ethnic heterogeneity in space and time. The use of the household as an analytical unit is proposed as the most successful means of defining ethnically distinct populations in pre-Hispanic contexts. This methodology is applied to Late Intermediate period (ca. A.D. 1000–1475) sites in the Osmore Drainage of southern Peru. Two domestic architectural types are defined that are hypothesized to correspond to ethnically distinct groups. Excavation data are analyzed to further differentiate these household types and provide a framework for addressing the dynamics of pre-Hispanic cultural process in the South Central Andes.     

Distinguished Lecture in Archeology: Beyond Criticizing New Archeology

This article was presented as the Distinguished Lecture in Archeology at the 91st Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, December 4, 1992, in San Francisco.     

Book Reviews: Archeology

Book reviewed in this article:
The Collapse of Complex Societies . Joseph A. Tainter
The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations . Norman Yoffee and George L. Cowgill , eds.     

Distinguished Lecture in Archeology: In Defense of the Seventies—The Adolescence of New Archeology

The core of this article was first presented as the Distinguished Lecture in Archeology at the 88th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, November 17, 1989, in Washington, D.C.     

Migration in Archeology: The Baby and the Bathwater

Migration has been largely ignored by archeologists for the last two decades. Yet prehistoric demography and population studies are accepted as central concerns, and neither of these can be studied profitably without an understanding of migration. Recent books by Rouse and Renfrew have resurrected migration as a subject of serious analysis. It is proposed here that systems-oriented archeologists, in rejecting migration, have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. Traditional archeological approaches to migration fall short because a methodology for examining prehistoric migration must be dependent upon an understanding of the general structure of migration as a patterned human behavior. Aspects of such a structure are suggested and an application to a particular case in Eastern Europe is described.     

Distinguished Lecture: Archeology and Anthropology

This essay was delivered as the Distinguished Lecture to the 86th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, November 21, 1987, at Chicago, Illinois.     

Bighorn Canyon Archeology: A Reply

Abstract

In a review of Bighorn Canyon Archeology (Husted 1969), Kehoe (1972) resorts to misrepresentation and insinuation in an attempt to discredit a differing point of view. The author reiterates his position and replies to Kehoe’s insinuation of unethical practice.