Intangible technologies

In discussing scholarly debates about social “complexity,” Omur posed a question about what types of evidence archaeologists repeatedly employ to conceptualize the rise and formation of the state. Two potential categories of evidence were mentioned as receiving significant scholarly attention: administrative technologies (e.g., Rothman) and (control of) prestige goods (e.g., Stein). We also debated about a possible disconnect between theoretical assertions and material data—i.e., perhaps in efforts to critique and deconstruct existing frameworks of social complexity, we have lost sight of archaeological evidence, or at least how to utilize this evidence to formulate and support theory. This may be an embarrassing statement to make, but it seems like some of us were concerned with a general lack of…middle range theory? From these general topics, I have a few disjointed thoughts about these points, from a Mesoamerican perspective.

First, Rothman emphasizes the importance of searching for “administrative development” in the archaeological record. To do so, he focuses on writing systems, seals, and sealings, arguing for an intimate association between administration and writing. The development of writing systems in the Precolumbian world has also been much discussed, and it too has been linked to “social complexity.” However, its evolution is generally understood less as a tool of administration than it is as propaganda, ideology, and a means of manufacturing history. Does this emphasis imply that the formation of the state, or social complexity, in Mesoamerica occurred solely on a propagandistic or ideological or revisionist level? It is difficult to believe that the Maya, for example, lacked formalized administration or bureaucracy, despite the fact that there is little evidence for Maya equivalents to cylinder seals or clay bullae.

The question of material evidence may have something to do with this. Despite countless extant texts painted on ceramics or carved in stone, perishable materials such as paper rarely survive in the subtropical climate of Central America (apart from the handful of Mexican codices that survived from the sixteenth century). Nonetheless, there exists indirect evidence to suggest that the Maya wrote on paper and in books—many narrative scenes on ceramics show humans, deities, and animals writing on these media. Interestingly, most of the “courtly” writing is associated with people of noble birth or priestly occupation, mythical humans, or select animals, such as the rabbit. Analyses of these images, which show high-status or superhuman beings writing in palaces or amongst the gods, has led archaeologists to conclude that they show the production of the types of texts now studied by epigraphers, i.e., that the content of these texts were dynastic and life histories of rulers, accounts of war, records of dedication events, documents of ritual which also appear in more durable media.

However, representations also hint at the presence of another type of writing and text entirely. Several ceramic depictions of scribes show a mythical being hard at work with a quill and paper; bar-and-dot numerals pour from his body. This scribe always appears with these numbers, and he is shown as a monkey—one of the evil half-brothers of the supernatural Hero Twins of Maya mythology. Because he is always associated with nothing but numbers, scholars have hypotehsized that he may represent a lost world of Maya writing—that associated with administration and record-keeping. (As a note, the monkey scribe is shown more specifically as a Howler monkey, a slow-moving, sloth-like animal. Perhaps this reveals something about how the Maya conceptualized bureaucracy…). We know little about this aspect of Maya society, largely because we have no direct material evidence to illuminate it further. My (admittedly long-winded) point is simlply that the link between administrative systems with writing systems should be carefully considered. The two were not equivalent, at least not universally, and it should be obvious that preservation of writing is fragmentary.

Another interesting question is whether can recognize administrative technologies for what they are. The knotted khipu, for instance, is understood as a crucial administrative tool of an expanding Inca empire—though no one is certain how it worked. Some argue that it was a writing system, others a binary code language, others a numerically-based accounting system.

A final, and mostly unrelated, thought. Returning to the question of what makes a prestige good valuable, I was reminded of Nicholas Saunders’ work with pearls and obsidian in the New World. In short, Sauders compiles archaeological, ethnohistoric, and historic documents to argue that the “value” of brilliant, lustrous objects was reconceptualized and renegotiated upon the collision of Amerindian and European worldviews concerning wealth and value. Saunders never takes for granted that prestige goods derive value from their rarity or exoticness or control over their production and distribution by elites, but rather argues that value is contextual, dynamic, multi-faceted, culturally-specific, mediated, etc.; this complexity, though, is ultimately derived from written and material evidence. I won’t summarize his article(s) (feel free to skim one of them), but I thought they were convincing accounts of how value, prestige, and wealth can be successfully studied archaeologically.