TY - JOUR
T1 - Economic growth in Mesoamerica
T2 - Obsidian consumption in the coastal lowlands
AU - Stark, Barbara L.
AU - Boxt, Matthew A.
AU - Gasco, Janine
AU - González Lauck, Rebecca B.
AU - Hedgepeth Balkin, Jessica D.
AU - Joyce, Arthur A.
AU - King, Stacie M.
AU - Knight, Charles L.F.
AU - Kruger, Robert
AU - Levine, Marc N.
AU - Lesure, Richard G.
AU - Mendelsohn, Rebecca
AU - Navarro-Castillo, Marx
AU - Neff, Hector
AU - Ohnersorgen, Michael
AU - Pool, Christopher A.
AU - Raab, L. Mark
AU - Rosenswig, Robert M.
AU - Venter, Marcie
AU - Voorhies, Barbara
AU - Williams, David T.
AU - Workinger, Andrew
N1 - Funding Information:
In authorship, after the first author, who organized and drafted the study, authors are alphabetized. The authors acknowledge funding support in their investigations by the Colorado Archaeological Society , Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT), the National Endowment for the Humanities , the National Geographic Society , the National Science Foundation , Sigma Xi , University of Colorado Graduate School , University of Colorado Dept. of Anthropology , and the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research . All field investigations were conducted with permission from the Mexican Consejo de Arqueología of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. In addition to our own projects, we drew upon data from publications by Chantal Esquivias and Carl Wendt. We appreciate the encouragement of a number of additional colleagues who were ultimately unable to contribute data. We thank John Clark, José Lobo, Michael Smith, Dennis Young, and two anonymous reviewers for useful suggestions, but they are not responsible for the statements in the paper. Stark presented a pilot study concerning coastal obsidian consumption at the 78th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in 2013.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Inc.
PY - 2016/3/1
Y1 - 2016/3/1
N2 - Economic growth is rarely examined for ancient states and empires despite its prominence as a topic in modern economies. The concept is debated, and many measures of growth are inaccessible for most of the ancient world, such as gross domestic product (GDP). Scholars generally have been pessimistic about ancient economic growth, but expectations derived from dramatic growth in modern economies can lead to overlooking important evidence about economic change in the past. The measure of economic growth that we adopt focuses on the economic well-being of ordinary households. We evaluate one domain of evidence: imported obsidian implement consumption in the coastal lowlands of Mesoamerica. We situate the obsidian study against a backdrop of ideas concerning economic growth in ancient societies because such topics have received only modest attention for Mesoamerica. For the major Mesoamerican ceramic periods, we (1) display the already-known early technological shift in predominant techniques of obsidian implement production-from percussion and bipolar flakes to prismatic pressure blades-that led to more efficient tool production for long-distance trade, (2) note other lithic technological improvements, and (3) evaluate increased obsidian access with a growing market system in the last centuries of the prehispanic record.
AB - Economic growth is rarely examined for ancient states and empires despite its prominence as a topic in modern economies. The concept is debated, and many measures of growth are inaccessible for most of the ancient world, such as gross domestic product (GDP). Scholars generally have been pessimistic about ancient economic growth, but expectations derived from dramatic growth in modern economies can lead to overlooking important evidence about economic change in the past. The measure of economic growth that we adopt focuses on the economic well-being of ordinary households. We evaluate one domain of evidence: imported obsidian implement consumption in the coastal lowlands of Mesoamerica. We situate the obsidian study against a backdrop of ideas concerning economic growth in ancient societies because such topics have received only modest attention for Mesoamerica. For the major Mesoamerican ceramic periods, we (1) display the already-known early technological shift in predominant techniques of obsidian implement production-from percussion and bipolar flakes to prismatic pressure blades-that led to more efficient tool production for long-distance trade, (2) note other lithic technological improvements, and (3) evaluate increased obsidian access with a growing market system in the last centuries of the prehispanic record.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jaa.2016.01.008
DO - 10.1016/j.jaa.2016.01.008
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84958154901
SN - 0278-4165
VL - 41
SP - 263
EP - 282
JO - Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
JF - Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
ER -
