Politywide Analysis and Imperial Political Economy: The Relationship between Valley Political Complexity and Administrative Centers in the Wari Empire of the Central Andes

This article tests a model for the political economy of the Wari Empire (AD 600–1000) of Peru. This model divides the empire into core and periphery zones. In the core, Wari political economy was organized to extract surplus agricultural production to feed the capital. In the periphery, the Wari strove to extract prestige goods. We suggest that there is a strong relationship between where the empire chose to locate its centers in the periphery and the political complexity of the local population in which the center was placed. We argue that in areas of low political organization sites should be located near the geographic center of a population. These sites will tend to function as local administrative centers geared toward the organization and exploitation of the area's wealth potential. In areas with more complex political organization sites should be located on the margins of a population. These sites should have functioned as gateway centers controlling, or at least profiting from, interregional exchange. Our model was systematically tested through the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The results suggest that much of the variability found in Wari site placement in the periphery can be explained by differences in local sociopolitical complexity.     

Leftovers: The presence of manufacture-derived aquatic lipids in Alaskan pottery

Lipids preserved within the walls of ancient pottery vessels are routinely analysed to reveal their original contents. The provenience of aquatic lipids in pottery is generally connected to vessel function (e.g., for cooking or storing fish, shellfish and aquatic mammals). However, ethnographic reports from early historic Alaska mention the use of aquatic oils for waterproofing low-fired pottery. Results of lipid residue studies on Alaskan pottery reflect an exclusive function of pottery to process aquatic resources. However, can one be sure these residues are the product of vessel function and not a remnant of the manufacturing process? The study presents the results of an experiment where the preservation of aquatic lipids during the firing process at different temperatures was measured. It was found that nearly all lipids were removed at firing temperatures of ≥ 400°C. Petrographic analysis of Alaskan pottery samples indicates that firing temperatures were generally > 550°C but < 800°C. The contribution of pre-firing manufacture-derived lipids to samples fired at these temperatures may be regarded as negligible. While the possible presence of aquatic lipids from post-firing surface treatments cannot be excluded, such treatments appear unnecessary for well-fired pottery.     

A systematic approach to the recovery and identification of starches from carbonised deposits on ceramic vessels

Starch granules are being successfully recovered from an increasing range of artefacts. Here we present the recovery of starches from carbonised ceramic ‘foodcrusts’ from late Mesolithic–early Neolithic residues at the site of Neustadt in northern Germany. A method for investigating background loading of residues with contaminant starches is proposed by comparing interior ‘foodcrusts’ versus exterior ‘sooting’, for the purposes of eliminating samples with insignificant quantities of grains from subsequent identification procedures. The classification of starches to plant taxon is traditionally achieved by manual observations and measurement of nominal and ratio morphological variables. Here, we present a method for the automated classification of granules, using software developed in-house. The results show that when multiple granules are considered, the species selected as modern reference examples can be classified to high levels of specificity. When applied to the archaeological samples we show that wild plant resources persist in importance across the transition to agriculture, with high proportions of granule forms consistent with acorn (Quercus sp.) occurring in all samples. Hazelnut (Corylus avellana) types are less well-represented suggesting it was not an important food in the context of pottery, and may have been over-represented in the repertoire of hunter–gatherer resources. Cereals are not represented in any of the samples, supporting the notion that their adoption may have been a slow process, occurring more gradually than for other domesticated foods, or that they were not initially processed in ceramic vessels.