Some Political Processes of Ranked Societies

This article explores the emergence of inequality in two regions of Mesoamerica: the Soconusco and Valley of Oaxaca. Dichotomous models that propose a continuum of political strategy (i.e., Leach 1954; Renfrew 1974; Spencer 1993; Blanton et al. 1996) are used to examine the different processes evident in the comparison of settlement, mortuary, and architectural data between these two regions. The elite in Early and Middle Formative Soconusco appear to integrate society with a comparatively external oriented and exclusionary strategy whereas in the Valley of Oaxaca Early and Middle Formative elites employed a more group-oriented, internally focused, and corporate strategy. Environment richness and proximity of competing communities may account for the primary, and perhaps unintentional, emergence of inequality in the Soconusco around 1400 B.C.E. In the Valley of Oaxaca inequality emerged as many as 250 years later in a less circumscribed area. Such environmental, political, and chronological factors may be responsible for some of the differences in integrative strategies evident in the two regions.