1

Actor-Based Modeling of Political Behavior among theChacoan Anasazi of the American Southwest

Paper presented in the Symposium“New Studies of Chacoan Outliers”

60th Annual Meeting of theSociety for American Archaeology

Minneapolis, Minnesota May 3-7, 1995

John KantnerDepartment of Anthropology

University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara, CA 93106

kantner@alishaw.ucsb.edu(805) 966-3847

(draft version)May 3, 1995

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Introduction

In many ways, the investigation of the Chaco Anasazi is at an important juncture.The past two decades of research at Chaco Canyon and surrounding areas have beengrounded in an adaptationist and group-selectionist paradigm focusing on the role thatthe arid environment of the northern Southwest played in the integration of disparateAnasazi groups into a “system” that benefited everyone. Specifically, most theories con-tend that environmental fluctuations led to some degree of increasing social complexityand the integration of the region to contend with the risky subsistence base (e.g., Judge1979, 1989; Judge et al. 1981; Toll 1985; Irwin-Williams and Shelley 1980; Vivian 1990;Lekson 1984). Concordant with these theories is the argument that the peripheral areas ofthe Chaco region functioned to serve the system as a whole by providing surplus subsis-tence goods to be redistributed to other communities experiencing temporarily low agri-cultural productivity (e.g., Powers et al. 1983; Marshall et al. 1979). Investigations basedon these approaches have been very productive, and our knowledge of the Chaco Anasazicontinues to increase rapidly.

Recent investigations, however, are finding that these theories cannot provide acomplete explanation for the development of the Chaco Anasazi. For example, the flow ofgoods in the system now appears to have been oriented more towards sustaining ChacoCanyon itself than to alleviating risk for the entire region (Toll 1991). Intensive investiga-tions of the famous road system are discovering that many of the assumed links betweenparts of the San Juan Basin may not have existed (Roney 1992; Nials et al. 1987), while thesize of the region exhibiting Chacoan characteristics is growing to a size that makes thedegree and scale of integration questionable (Fig. 1; Lekson 1991; Doyel and Lekson1992:16-17; other papers in this session). Other research indicates that the occupants ofChaco Canyon were more factionalized and competitive than previously assumed(Sebastian 1992). These investigations suggest that a reliance on group-selectionist theo-ries obscures the variability and disunity that may have been an important factor in thedevelopment of the Chaco system (e.g., Brumfiel 1994:5; other papers in this session).

This paper therefore advocates 1) a focus on the local development of areas periph-eral to Chaco Canyon; 2) an examination of political factors that could have stimulatedsociocultural development; and 3) the use of actor-based models that focus on the indi-vidual decision-making process. Like Sebastian (1991, 1992), the approach used in thispaper diverges from a focus on adaptationist and group-selectionist models. However,while Sebastian relies at least partially on a Marxist foundation for her arguments(1992:68-80), this paper employs neo-Darwinian theory, evolutionary ecology, and gametheory, and particularly emphasizes the concept of methodological individualism commonto these approaches (Smith and Boyd 1990; Smith and Winterhalder 1992; Hawkes 1992,1993). A focus on the expectations of actor-based models has great potential for explainingthe variability found in the Chacoan archaeological record, and it adds another dimensionto group-level explanations for the development of the Chaco Anasazi.

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Durango

Dolores

Monticello

Blanding

Mexican Hat

Kayenta

ChinleTuba City

Third Mesa

Second Mesa

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Winslow Zuni

Gallup

Farmington

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GrantsLaguna

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Chaco Canyon

Allantown

Navajo Springs

Carter Ranch

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Cedar Mesa

Guadalupe

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Salmon

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Bis sa'ani

Naschitti

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Nuvakwewtaqua

Hogback

Snowflake

Springerville

San MateoBig HouseFlagstaff

NEW MEXICO

COLORADO

ARIZONA

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0 50

kilometers

KEY:

▲ Great House (Chaco Era A.D.900 -1150)● Great Kiva (Chaco Era)■ Both (Chaco Era)

Great House (Post-Chaco A.D. 1150-1250)❏ Major LPIII Structure (A.D. 1250-1300)❍ Major EPIV Structure (A.D. 1300+)

✪ Modern Town Greater San Juan Basin

Study Area

Prehistoric Road

Figure 1: Distribution of Great Houses and Great Kivas in the northern Southwest. Sym-bols represent the presence, but not the quantity, of specialized architecture in a particu-lar Anasazi community (adapted from Fowler and Stein 1994:102).

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This paper is divided into two sections. In the first, some aspects of an actor-basedmodel of political competition are derived from perspectives of neo-Darwinian theory andsimilar approaches employing methodological individualism. In the second section, thegeneral applicability of the model is evaluated for its potential utility in explaining theevolution of Anasazi groups exhibiting Chacoan traits. This section uses preexistingsurvey data collected from a small study area in the southern San Juan Basin, focusingspecifically on settlement patterns during the Pueblo II period (A.D. 900 -1100). Finally,the fit of the model to the data is evaluated, and some yet unanswered questions andimplications of the model are briefly discussed. This paper provides neither a completetest of the proposed model of political competition, nor a complete explanation for theevolution of the Chaco system. It is instead an exploratory analysis designed to evaluatethe potential utility of this alternative explanatory framework for investigating the ChacoAnasazi.

Political Competition and the Development of LeadershipThe approach employed in this paper is based upon the logic of “methodological

individualism” inherent in neo-Darwinian theory and implemented in evolutionary ecol-ogy and game theory (Smith and Boyd 1990:167; Bettinger 1991:151-162). According toSmith and Winterhalder (1992:39),

methodological individualism (MI) holds that the properties of groups(social institutions, populations, societies, economies, etc.) are a result ofthe actions of its individual members...MI stands in opposition to variousforms of methodological collectivism, which hold that group propertiescannot be reduced to those of its members and their interactions.

Methodological individualism provides the framework for both “the theory of games”(von Neumann and Morgenstern 1944; Luce and Raiffa 1957), which is an essential part ofmicroeconomics, and the theory of “evolutionarily stable strategies” (ESS; also known asevolutionary game theory), which “combines the methods of game theory with the ex-planatory logic of natural selection theory” (Smith and Winterhalder 1992:37; MaynardSmith 1974, 1982). According to these theories, individuals evaluate the costs and benefitsof their potential behaviors based on their desired goals, the available opportunities, andthe effective constraints. In social contexts, these evaluations also depend on the goals,choices, and actions of other individuals in the group (Hawkes 1992:274). Individualsevaluate the particular circumstances and choose what they feel are the competitive orcooperative behaviors that will supply them with the most benefits. Because choices aremade according to the actions of other individuals, conflicts of interest may result in com-petitive behaviors that provide fewer individual benefits than if everyone cooperated, asillustrated by the Prisoner’s Dilemma game in game theory (Smith and Winterhalder1992:36-38; Cashdan 1992:277-278).

In ESS theory and classical forms of game theory used in economics, individuals areassumed to be guided by self-interest. This assumption is based in the precepts of naturalselection, although the logic of the assumption varies according to the exact approach

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taken (Bettinger 1991:178-179). In evolutionary ecology and in economics, the resourcesessential to survival and successful reproduction are seen as inherently limited, and there-fore natural selection is believed to favor competitive and economizing individuals whomaximize the net benefits of their behaviors (Cashdan 1990:5; Clark 1990:47-48). In con-trast, proponents of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology argue that the process ofnatural selection has led to the development of genetically structured psychologicalmechanisms that evoke maximizing behavior in individuals (Tooby and Cosmides 1992:54;Hawkes 1993:342). For this paper, the working assumption is that people make decisionsand choose behaviors that they believe will maximize their own returns; the exact locus ofthese behaviors is currently not at issue.

Approaches of methodological individualism are generally based on the assump-tion that individuals make rational choices when given a series of alternatives and withincertain constraints (Smith and Winterhalder 1992:45). These choices are based on evalua-tions of a “currency” that individuals are trying to maximize (Cashdan 1990:5-6). In evolu-tionary ecology, natural selection is seen as favoring the maximization of expected fitness,while in economics, human rationality favors the maximization of expected “utility”(Smith and Boyd 1990:169), a measure of the satisfaction determined by each individual’spreferences. For all forms of methodological individualism, “the necessarypresumption...is that there is a strong positive association between fitness and utility, as aconsequence of a history of natural selection...This is convenient to assume, but difficult todemonstrate” (Smith and Boyd 1990:169). In this study, a rational-choice approach isemployed, and individuals are assumed to be maximizing expected utility. Although inthe long-term, utility is likely to correlate with fitness, the current approach acknowledgesthat this relationship will not always be perfect since the process of natural selection isnormally slower than the process of human rationalization. Perhaps more importantly, anindividual’s preferences and utilities can be shaped through cultural mechanisms andhistorical context, such as through the manipulation of ideology and religion or the use ofexternal symbols of power and authority (Boyd and Richerson 1985; Demarest and Conrad1992; Earle 1991).

Perhaps the most effective way for an individual to maximize utilities as well asproductive and reproductive success is to attain increasingly powerful forms of leader-ship, beginning with positions of authority and persuasion and eventually developingpowerful coercive control. In an extensive review of the ethnographic literature, Betzig(1986) concludes that “individuals will exploit positions of strength in resolving conflictsin their own interest, and...ultimately they will seek reproductive awards.” For example,in a recent study of the chiefs on the Pacific atoll of Ifaluk, Betzig (1988:61) concludes:

chiefs and their likely successors reap productive and reproductiveadvantages over others. Clan chiefs:1. Take home nearly twice as much in fish in pounds per person aftercommunal catches;2. Take in food on a regular basis from distantly related households,and redistribute it to closer kin; and

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3. Spend just over half as much time physically at work as other menof the same age.4. By a number of mechanisms, chiefs and their successors have fatheredmore children.

Similarly, Chagnon (1979:399-400) notes that for the Yanomamo, political power is used togain preferential access to mates and to mobilize kin to produce additional food to supporta leader’s activities. In their study of the Maya cargo system, Hayden and Gargett (1990:6)found that “individuals in the highest cargo positions frequently do benefit in very impor-tant ways from their positions.” In general, ethnographic evidence suggests that individu-als in leadership positions are more polygynous, wealthier, and generally enjoy moresocial perks than their peers, resulting in greater personal and inclusive fitness and pre-sumably increased utilities as well. Furthermore, as leaders achieve higher levels of au-thority and control, beginning with clan or lineage leaders and developing into institution-alized leaders of state systems, their benefits correspondingly increase (e.g., Armstrong1928:96-97; Borgerhoff Mulder 1992:359-360; Dorsey and Murie 1940:84; Evans-Pritchard1940:44; Godelier 1991:295; Hau’ofa 1981:140-141; Hogbin 1951:140; Holmes 1958:17; Lieber1971:24; Lienhardt 1958:344; Mann 1989:165; Oliver 1955:106; Olson 1936:94; Richards1951:170; Spoehr 1949:77, 237-239; Stayt 1968:34, 166; Titiev 1951:56; Turner 1979:33;Uchendu 1965:39-41; Wilson 1951:285).

In this paper, the basic assumptions derived from evolutionary ecology and gametheory are outlined below:

1) Individuals are guided by self-interest and they will be expected toattempt to improve their productive and reproductive success;2) all individuals make decisions that maximize their utility, which is notnecessarily an economic measure, but which may also include “cultural”factors;3) the choices available to each individual and the decisions madedepend both on a set of environmental, historical, and social constraints,and on the expected actions and reactions of other individuals inthe group;4) a primary route to productive and reproductive success is in theachievement of progressively more authoritative and powerful formsof leadership.

Given these assumptions, it would be expected that any given individual’s success atdeveloping and centralizing political leadership would depend on the opportunities pro-vided by the local physical and social context. The effects of these contextual factors onindividual political competition can be enumerated using models from neo-Darwinianevolutionary theory, evolutionary ecology, and game theory. In previous papers (Kantner1994, 1995), I have discussed how many of these models can be used to explain how in-creasingly coercive and powerful forms of leadership develop from an egalitarian politicalsystem characterized by ephemeral authority-based leadership. The basic problem for an

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aspiring leader is overcoming egalitarian-maintaining, or “leveling”, mechanisms (Boehm1993). The argument assumes that all societies have aspiring leaders who, when presentedwith the right opportunities, develop their leadership with the goal of augmenting theirown productive and ultimately reproductive success, usually at the expense of othercommunity members.

In this paper, only a few contextual factors that can stimulate the development ofleadership are explored. The goal is neither to completely outline a single model forexplaining the development of powerful and institutionalized forms of leadership nor toexplain the evolution of the Chaco Anasazi “system”. Instead, the intent of this paper is toevaluate the utility of employing actor-based approaches for explaining the variabilityfound in the archaeological record of the San Juan Basin. To accomplish this, some, butcertainly not all, relevant contextual factors are briefly explored below.

Variable Resource ProductivityA context characterized by patchy resources with variable productivity has several

effects on economic and political competition. First, variable productivity stimulates theunequal production of basic resources without involving conspicuous efforts that mightlead to the immediate enactment of leveling mechanisms. This unequal production alsochanges the costs and benefits of the potential behavioral choices for each communitymember, as illustrated by the Hawk-Dove game in game theory (Boone 1992:318-319;Hawkes 1992:280-282). According to this model, in a contest over a resource, if the cost ofdefending the resource is greater than its value, then the rational behavior is usually toplay “Dove” by not defending the resource. Conversely, if the value of the resource isgreater than the cost of defending it, the best move is to play “Hawk” and fight for theresource. In a symmetric game in which the players are equal, such as if resource produc-tivity were even, the contests reach a sort of impasse in which everyone is playing thesame strategy and no one ever gets ahead, which corresponds with egalitarian politicalsituations. However, because the cost for any individual can depend on personally rel-evant factors, such as their available surpluses, strength of support, and their ability toreinvest profits, the game can become asymmetric. Those individuals with naturallyhigher resource productivity have less to lose and potentially more to gain, and thereforecontinually play Hawk, while their less fortunate but rational peers will choose to playDove as long as the cost of defending the resource remains higher than its value to them.Subsequent “contest competitions” between individuals (or corporate groups; e.g., kingroups) lead to a “despotic distribution” in which individuals in the best resource patchesare increasingly producing more than their unfortunate peers, who are slowly losing thebest lands (Boone 1992:316-317). If the surpluses from a despotic distribution can beinvested in debt-formation, facility enhancement, external exchange, feasting, or otherventures that bring direct profit or prestige, then an aspiring leader can greatly enhancehis or her position. Ultimately, this competition leads to the concentration of the resourcein the hands of a single individual or corporate group. For a political entrepreneur, theeconomic advantage created by natural variability in resource production can facilitate thedevelopment of increasingly powerful forms of leadership.

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Improved Environmental ConditionsA shift to generally improved environmental conditions will also provide greater

opportunities for leadership development. This is predicted by both Hawk-Dove and“tolerated theft” models (Hawkes 1992:283-284). The basic argument is that during peri-ods of environmental stress, the value of any particular resource for all individuals isrelatively high, making it worth the cost of defending it. In other words, everyone isplaying Hawk, making it difficult for any one individual to take advantage of unequalproduction, which in any case is likely to be suppressed and less unequal due to the uni-formly poor conditions. However, as conditions improve and productivity increases foreveryone, the value of each additional unit of the resource decreases (Boone 1992). Be-cause of this, most individuals will tolerate the theft of some of their resources (they willplay Dove) since the cost of defense is now higher than the value of the resource. From anethnographic perspective, the improved conditions also lead to the relaxation of egalitar-ian-maintaining mechanisms since the costs of these mechanisms are higher than the valueof the resource that any individual Dove is losing (Boehm 1993). In this situation, the beststrategy for aspiring leaders who have opportunities to reinvest their income is to playHawk and thereby enhance their economic and political status. Even if other communitymembers disapprove of the aggressive activities of the Hawkish individual, none of themmay be willing to pay for the cost of egalitarian sanctions, leading to a “second-ordercollective action problem” modeled by the Prisoner’s Dilemma and Chicken games (Boone1992; Hawkes 1992).

Spatial CircumscriptionOne of the most effective egalitarian sanctions available to community members is

to simply abandon an increasingly demanding and aggressive leader whose activities arecostly to the entire community (Betzig 1988:59; Carneiro 1981; Roscoe 1993:115-116; Boehm1993). However, a circumscribed context that restricts fissioning significantly raises thecost of this option, such as when there are no nearby resource patches to move into, eitherbecause the good resource patches are already occupied and surrounded by much lowerquality land (i.e., physical circumscription), or because every patch of any kind is com-pletely occupied (i.e., social circumscription). In these cases, fissioning away from a coer-cive leader and his or her supporters would involve great costs, either because the fission-ing group would have to travel a great distance to an unknown area, or because theywould have to join another community in which they would be at the bottom of any localhierarchies and receive resource patches of relatively poor quality (Aldenderfer 1993:15).In essence, a spatially circumscribed resource base can make the costs of fissioning muchhigher than the costs imposed by an ambitious leader. This situation can provide anaspiring leader with greater opportunities to increase their status and centralize theireconomic and political control.

Ideological Sources of AuthorityAccess to ideological sources of authority, such as new religious forms or high-

status goods, can be used to legitimate an aspiring leader’s competitive activities(Aldenderfer 1993; Bloch 1989:129-130; Burns and Laughlin 1979; Laughlin and d’Aquili1979; Earle 1991:5). Although this may not be readily recognized as useful in neo-Darwin-

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ian models such as evolutionary game theory, ideology and religion can be profitablyviewed as a way to alter the complex algorithms with which community members evalu-ate the activities of ambitious leaders. In essence, religion and ideology can add new costsor benefits, or modify old ones, thereby effectively restricting the behavioral options avail-able to other individuals. For example, new religious forms can enforce leadership posi-tions by raising the costs of resistance, or a leadership position can be associated withimportant religious responsibilities that are seen as indispensable to the community.High-status goods that perhaps had some previous role in the religious dogma can pro-vide a new resource that is seen as important to all community members but which iscontrolled by ambitious leaders due to their unequal access to exchange or production.One problem is that it is difficult to simply create a new religious form or define a newhigh-status good and then somehow impose this construct on other community members.For this reason, external sources of authority can be a lucrative resource for an aspiringleader, especially if these sources are already admired and respected, such as in the case ofa nearby social group in which everyone appears to be “better off” than in the local area.

DiscussionBecause actor-based models depend on individual evaluation of the entire range of

potential behaviors by all members of a community, there are many more possible contex-tual factors that can stimulate the development of leadership and inequality in any givenarea. However, in general, all conditions rely on circumstances in which either 1) theperceived costs of maintaining sanctions against inegalitarian behavior increase, 2) theperceived benefits provided by the aspiring leader increase, or 3) the perceived costs tocommunity members of tolerating ambitious and competitive behaviors decrease. Theactual manifestations of these conditions in any given area will be historically and contex-tually specific, leading to variability in the actual development of power and inequality. Ifno appropriate conditions exist, aspiring leaders will have little opportunity to increasetheir authority and power, and there will be a minimal amount of suppressed politicalcompetition. If some conditions exist, then ambitious individuals will begin to competewith one another for positions of leadership, but their success may be hampered by othercontextual factors militating against aggressive and costly competitive behavior. If thereare many contextual opportunities present that stimulate competition for positions ofleadership, then aspiring leaders will begin to centralize and expand their authority andpower and reap greater and greater productive and reproductive rewards. It is importantto note that the evaluation of contextual conditions is relative to the scale of political com-petition. For an aspiring leader in a single village, the relevant conditions are those thatare experienced in the immediate area. As power is subsequently centralized over moreand more villages and larger and larger regions, the relevant context for evaluating theopportunities available to all individuals accordingly increases in spatial scale. This canhave important consequences, such as in the case of two regions with internal differencesbut with interregional equality; this context will likely lead to the development of twoindividuals/corporate groups in control of two peer polities that cannot gain an advantageover one another but that can gain nothing by forming an alliance.

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Political Competition in “Chacoesque” Anasazi Communities

The Chaco Anasazi of the northern American Southwest provide an excellent casestudy for evaluating the utility of actor-based models of political development. Diachronicanalyses suggest that at least some of the communities exhibiting Chacoan traits, particu-larly those close to Chaco Canyon, were most likely inhabited by some form of “middle-range” society characterized by leaders who were actively making the transition fromauthority-based decision-making to more coercive forms of social control (Sebastian 1992;Mathien 1993:44-46; Powers et al. 1983:344-345; Akins 1986:135-141; Judge 1989:238-240).The aridity of the region, which preserves archaeological materials, further enhances thereconstruction of past lifeways and paleoenvironmental contexts in fine detail, whileallowing the dating of cultural change with relatively high levels of accuracy and preci-sion. The variable physical and social environmental conditions found in the many areasoccupied by “Chacoesque” peoples further allows for comparative study of the effect oflocal context on political competition and leadership development. A century of archaeo-logical and anthropological investigations has produced an extensive database of informa-tion on both prehistoric and modern groups living throughout the Southwest. Federal,state, and academic efforts to standardize and manage archaeological information havemade this database accessible and useful for large-scale analyses (e.g., Gumerman 1971).These factors make it possible to obtain relatively fine-grain regional data useful for actor-based explanations of cultural evolution.

Table 1: Characteristics of soils in the study area. Refer to Figure 2 for locations of eachmap area.

% of Soil Class in each Map Areaa

Average Soil Brillouin

Map Areas 1 2 3 4 6 Productivityb

Indexc

1 9 45 20 11 15 0.56 ± 0.30 0.88

2 15 29 25 18 13 0.54 ± 0.31 0.97

3 0 15 37 36 12 0.39 ± 0.22 0.79

4 0 3 2 55 40 0.17 ± 0.17 0.54

5 0 4 5 43 40 0.16 ± 0.19 0.62

6 0 4 3 8 85 0.07 ± 0.18 0.34

Class Qualities

Moisture retention > 6" 4.5-6" 3-4.5" 2.5-3" < 2.5"

Effective depth > 40" 30-40" 20-30" 10-20" < 10"

Slope (%) < 2 2-5 5-10 10-20 > 20

Productivity indexb

1.00 0.75 0.50 0.25 0.00

a This information was derived from Maker et al. 1974. There is no soil class 5 in the study area.

b This arbitrary productivity index was used by Kintigh (1985:105-106) in his analysis of agricultural productivity in an

adjacent region to the south. This provides a simple index for illustrating the differences between the soil classes, and their effect on the relative productivity of the different map areas.c

This refers to the Brillouin Index for indicating how evenly a sample is distributed among a given number of classes (Pielou 1977). A value of 1 indicates that the sample is totally evenly distributed among the classes, while a value of 0 indicates that the entire sample is found in one class.

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Figure 2: The study area. The shading and associated numbers refer to the map areasand soil classes detailed in Table 1.

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Blue J

Andrews

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Kin Ya'a

Bluewater Spring

HostaButte

San Juan Basin

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Edge of Lobo Mesa

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The study area discussed in this paper consists of a 2500 km2 region centered onHosta Butte on the southern fringe of the San Juan Basin (Fig. 2). The archaeological data,which consists of almost 2,000 Anasazi, were collected from the Archaeological RecordsManagement System maintained by the Historic Preservation Division of the State of NewMexico. Efforts to standardize this data, which represents decades of investigation byhundreds of archaeologists, is discussed in an earlier paper (Kantner 1995), and will not berepeated here. This information has been assembled into a Geographic Information Sys-tem containing various layers of environmental and archaeological data for continuingresearch. According to this database, the vast majority of Anasazi sites in the study areawere occupied during Pueblo II (A.D. 900 - 1100). Most of the habitation structures fromthis time period are found in 13 communities, which can be divided into 2 groups depend-ing on which side of Lobo Mesa they are located (Fig. 2). The northern group consists ofthe communities of Dalton Pass, Muddy Water, Kin Ya’a, and Bluewater Spring (e.g., Figs.

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Figure 3: The Kin Ya’a community, including surrounding field houses.

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Northern Communities Great Kiva G.K. Size Reported Mean Great House Number of G.H. Size G.H. Rm. Size Number of Reported Mean

Designation (meters) G.K. Dates Ceramic Datesa

Designation G.H. Rooms (sq. meters)b

(sq. meters) G.H. kivasc

G.H. Dates Ceramic Datesa

Dalton Pass LA98222 15.0 LPII-EPIII 862-1119 (1005) Dalton Pass 20 675-825 17.6 4(2) LPII-EPIII 862-1119 (1005)

Muddy Water LA10959 17.0 EPII-LPII 960-1095 (1028) Hurley Site 28 735-1205 16.9 2(2) EPII-LPII 954-1079 (1005)

LA10716 22 462-575 13.4 1(0) EPIII 1042-1150 (1096)

LA17257 7 270-380 17.3 2(2) EPIII 1047-1135 (1091)

Kin Ya'a LA16985 13.5 LPII-EPIII 986-1096 (1032) Kin Ya'a 44 1082-1845 15.5 4(4) LPII-EPIII 1032-1104 (1065)

Bluewater Spring LA59643 ~20.0 LPII ? Bluewater Spring 29 900-1800 ? ? LPII ?

Isolated Great Houses Section 8 8 364 11.5 2(2) LPII-EPIII 1036-1117 (1074)

LA72343 3 110 ? 1(1) EPII-LPII ?

Southern Communities

Kin Sani None Kin Sani 12 450 12.8 1(0) EPII-EPIII 986-1115 (1053)

Kin Niiyahk'eed 9 300-430 10.8 2(2) EPII-EPIII 986-1115 (1053)

Casamero LA8779 21.0 LPII-EPIII 1011-1095 (1056) Casamero 29 506-635 10.7 2(1) EPII-EPIII 1011-1095 (1056)

LA67158 16.0 EPII - LPII 974-1093 (1042) LA38113 8 90 ? 1(0) ? ?

Andrews LA17207 15.5 EPII 947-1014 (980) Andrews 14 538-640 ? 5(4) EPII-LPII 970-1084 (1032)

LA17217 23.5 EPII 947-1020 (983)

LA17218 12.5 EPII-LPII 970-1084 (1032)

LA46079 13.0 EPII-EPIII 986-1110 (1053)

Tse Bee Kintsoh LA48208 19.0 EPII-LPII ? Tse Bee Kintsoh 30 500-900 14.0 2(1) EPII-EPIII 950-1120 (1052)

LA51398 20.0 EPII 890-989 (938) Kin Henioe

8 100 ? ? LPII-EPIII ?

LA51418 19.0 LPII-EPIII 917-1112 (1030) LA51382 12 200 ? 1(0) EPII-LPII 917-1105 (1023)

LA51420 22.0 ? ?

Haystack LA12573A 19.0 LPII 963-1083 (1026) Haystack 28 750-1313 16.1 4(3) LPII-EPIII 1038-1100 (1069)

LA12573D 18.5 EPII 948-1060 (995) Kin Tl'iish ? 368-500 ? 1(1) EPII-EPIII 986-1126 (1066)

LA68896 18.0 EPII-EPIII 986-1126 (1065) LA12573A 20 400 14.8 1(1) EPII-LPII 963-1083 (1026)

LA6022 19.0 LPII-EPIII 1038-1100 (1069)

Redonda LA20520 22.0 EPII-LPII ? Redonda ? ? ? 4(?) EPII-LPII ?

Coyotes Sing Hered

Unknown Coyotes Sing Here 20 550 17.0 2(1) EPII-LPII 973-1086 (1036)

Coolidged

LA36178 14.0 PI-LPII 956-1051 (1002) Coolidge West 10+ 405-650 16.7 3(2) LPII-EPIII 981-1110 (1052)

LA17289 19.0 LPII-EPIII 1012-1099 (1055) Coolidge East 11 400 10.6 1(1) LPII-EPIII 1012-1099 (1055)

Blue J Ruind

Unknown Blue J Ruin 6 80 ? 1(0) EPII-LPII 990-1133 (1069)

T-test results (P)f

0.12 0.02 0.02-0.04 0.03

a

Mean ceramic dates and occupation spans were derived using Steponaitis and Kintigh's (1993) method. Mean dates are in parentheses, while time spans represent confidence intervals of 68%.

b

A range representing the best estimates for structure floor area, including upper stories, but not including plazas.

c

The first number is total kivas, the second is the number of blocked-in kivas.

d

This community has not been surveyed.

e

Approximately 25% of Kin Henio has been destroyed by arroyo-cutting.

f

One-tailed T-test assuming unequal variances comparing northern and southern communities. These analyses included only Great Houses occupied in

Pueblo II and located in a community.

Table 2: Specialized architecture in the study area. The information on Great Housesand Great Kivas is organized by community.

14

Figure 4: The Dalton Pass community, including surrounding field houses.

3 and 4). The southern group of communities includes Coolidge, Tse Bee Kintsoh,Casamero, Andrews, Redonda, Kin Sani, Haystack, Coyotes Sing Here, and Blue J (e.g.,Figs. 5 and 6). Information on these communities is summarized in Tables 2 and 3. Scat-tered among the southern communities are numerous smaller hamlets and isolated habita-tions (Fig. 2).

There are many aspects of the Pueblo II Anasazi occupation of the study area thatare relevant for modeling actor-based political competition and development (Kantner1995). However, for the sake of brevity this paper will focus on identifying the contextualfactors discussed above and correlating them with the intensity of centralization predictedby the actor-based model of political competition.

▲

7000 ✪★

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Dalton Pass

LA9822

Key: Prehistoric road Great House Spring

Habitation structure Great Kiva Fieldhouse No systematic survey❐

■✪★

▲ tN mN

10005000

meters

15

Northern Communities Total Habitations Habitations/Kiva Great Housesb

Great Kivas

Dalton Passa

48 5.3 1 1

Muddy Water 104 3.5 1 1

Kin Ya'a 96 6.0 1 1

Bluewater Springa

52 7.4 1 1

Southern Communities

Kin Sani 49 1.8 2 0

Casamero 28 1.6 2 2

Andrews 22 2.0 1 4

Tse Bee Kintsoh 79 3.0 3 4

Haystacka

23 1.1 3 4

Redondaa

21 1.6 1 1

T-test results (P)c

0.04 0.006 0.02 0.05

Correlationd

a The number of structures in this community is underestimated due to inadequate survey.

b

This included only great houses occupied in Pueblo II and found within a community; it does not include the two late great houses found in Muddy Water.

c

One-tailed T-test assuming unequal variances comparing northern and southern communities.

d

The first number refers to the correlation of the number of modes with the number of great houses,

while the second refers to the correlation with great kivas.

Table 3: Distribution of habitations and specialized architectural features in study areacommunities.

Environmental ContextsThe study area consists of several important environmental factors that are differen-

tially represented and that likely affected political competition in each community. First,the structure of potential agricultural lands varies between areas north of Lobo Mesa andthose south of it. In the north, arable soils are restricted to narrow fingers of alluviumdescending from Lobo Mesa and spreading out into the arid San Juan Basin (Fig. 2). Incontrast, the area south of Lobo Mesa consists of wide drainages containing larger areas ofarable soil. The northern soil areas also tend to be more heterogeneous when comparedwith southern soils, as illustrated by Brillouin Indices of evenness (Table 1). The highpercentage of class 1 soils relative to other parts of the study area is especially significant,for these lands are much richer than other classes and would have led to even greaterdifferences in productivity, with people farming class 1 and probably class 2 lands enjoy-ing much greater harvests than their peers on the lower quality and less dependable land.Most importantly, political entrepreneurs on the best lands would have enjoyed greaterproductivity without having to invest conspicuous effort in their agricultural activities,which might have identified them as too ambitious and elicited negative sanctions di-rected at them.

16

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LA51382

Kin Henio

Tse BeeKintsoh

tN mN

10005000

meters

LA48208

LA51398

LA51420

LA51418

Key: Prehistoric road Great House Hamlet Habitation structure Great Kiva Fieldhouse No systematic survey❐

■✪★

Figure 5: The Tse Bee Kintsoh community, including surrounding hamlets and fieldhouses.

The sources of water also differ between the areas north and south of Lobo Mesa(Fig. 2). The northern areas are watered primarily by ephemeral drainages fed by rain onthe mesa and by springs against the mesa; any water flows quickly disappear into thebasin. In contrast, the southern area is fed by springs and by more dependable runofffrom both the Zuni Mountains and Lobo Mesa, which contribute to the headwaters of boththe Rio San Jose and the Rio Puerco of the West.

These physical differences between areas north of Lobo Mesa and those south of itwould be expected to have had significant consequences on the expression of competitivebehavior in the Anasazi communities found in the study area. First, the heterogeneoussoils and restricted water sources in the north would have promoted variable productivityand the development of a despotic distribution favoring a single individual or corporate

17

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Kin Niiyahk'eed

Kin Sani

7400

7200

CoyotesSing Here

tN mN

10005000

meters

Key: Prehistoric road Great House Hamlet

Habitation structure Great Kiva Fieldhouse No systematic survey❐

■✪★

Figure 6: The Kin Sani community, including surrounding hamlets. No locational infor-mation is available for the community associated with the Coyotes Sing Here GreatHouse.

group. If the differences in productivity could then have been reinvested, this variableproductivity could have been an important source of political and economic power. Incontrast, the resource structure south of Lobo Mesa is more homogeneous and less spa-tially restricted, which would have militated against unequal productivity. Second, thespatial circumscription of lands north of Lobo Mesa would have raised the cost of fission-ing and made it a less viable alternative for unhappy community members. In contrast,arable soils in the southern part of the study are more spatially expansive, which wouldhave promoted fissioning at the first sign of aggressive and competitive leaders.

The social context also differs between areas north of Lobo Mesa and those south ofit. As suggested by the presence of Chacoan roads (Fig. 2), northern communities appearto have had closer relationships with Chaco Canyon. In contrast, no Chacoan roads can be

18

demonstrated to connect with southern communities; only short pieces of roads directlyassociated with particular communities have been identified in these areas (Nials 1987;Roney 1992; Kantner 1995). If Chaco Canyon was an ideological center, as has been pro-posed by many archaeologists (e.g., Carlson and Judge 1983; Judge 1989), then differentialaccess to this potential source of legitimating power is likely to have been significant.Aspiring leaders in northern communities with access to increasing surpluses and a com-munity not likely to fission could have seized the opportunity to reinvest their surpluses inrelations with Chaco Canyon, which likely could have been transformed into ideologicallegitimation.

A final contextual factor that needs to be considered is that of environmentalchange during Pueblo II, the period in which the Chacoan phenomenon emerged. Accord-ing to Plog and others (1988:235-255), environmental conditions during Early Pueblo IIimproved from the relatively poor conditions associated with Pueblo I. These changesincluded a gradual increase in effective moisture and floodplain aggradation, while tem-poral variability initially remained high and spatial variability continued to be low untilthe A.D. 1000s. As Sebastian (1992:105, 146-147) demonstrates, Anasazi who had con-fronted the environmental instability of Pueblo I by overproducing and storing agricul-tural products would have soon been generating greater and greater surpluses duringPueblo II:

Given overproduction as a strategy for coping with an arid and uncertainenvironment, even a slight amelioration of the climate would ratherquickly create surplus production...Initially this improvement in therainfall regime would have been perceived as a high-frequencyenvironmental fluctuation...and most farmers would have continuedpursuing overproduction despite the mounting surpluses (Sebastian 1992:105).

Meanwhile, continuing population growth would have led to increasing differentiation inaccess to the better arable lands. Those individuals with access to the most dependableand productive lands would soon have been producing even greater surpluses than theirless fortunate peers. In this context, political entrepreneurs with increasing amounts ofsurplus would have sought opportunities to invest in ventures to increase their politicalpower. Other community members would have found these activities more tolerable dueto the overall significant improvement in environmental conditions. At the same time, thecontinued high-frequency, short-term environmental variability leading to occasional low-intensity subsistence problems would have provided frequent opportunities for aspiringleaders with large surpluses to exercise their generosity and create debts, thereby allowingthem to maximize returns from their agricultural pursuits (Sebastian 1992). These factorssuggest that Pueblo II was an ideal period for increasing competition between aspiringleaders as they invested their surpluses in activities to enhance their support and buildeconomic power, a situation that would have led to increased political centralization.

19

Political Competition and CentralizationAccording to actor-based models of political competition, these social and physical

environmental factors suggest that there should be a greater degree of political centraliza-tion in northern communities compared with southern communities. This is due to thegreater heterogeneity in soil quality, the circumscribed environmental situation, and thegreater access to ideological legitimation that characterized the contexts of northern com-munities. Identifying archaeological correlates for this expected centralization is a littlemore difficult. One immediately relevant pattern is the distribution of hamlets (Fig. 2).No hamlets are found in areas north of Lobo Mesa, but they are commonly found in thesouthern valleys. These hamlets, defined by small aggregations of from 3 to 8 habitations,were likely created as small groups of people fissioned from the larger villages. The ab-sence of hamlets in the northern area supports the contention that the local context re-stricted fissioning, thereby raising the cost of this form of resistance to aspiring leaders andfurther promoting centralization. In contrast, the more expansive arable soil areas south ofLobo Mesa would have promoted fissioning and made the centralization of power andauthority difficult.

The distribution of great houses is also likely to provide some information on thepolitical status of aspiring leaders in each community. The assumptions necessary tomake this argument are that 1) great houses were the loci of political competition in whichcommunity religious events, feasting, and gift-giving were sponsored by prominent indi-viduals or corporate groups; and 2) the numbers and sizes of great houses in each commu-nity are related to the degree of political centralization, with a community containing onelarge great house more centralized than a community with two or more contemporaneousgreat houses. These assumptions appear to be supportable based on their design to ac-commodate large numbers of people in plaza areas, their evidence for feasting activities,and the fact that many communities contain two or more contemporaneous great houses(Kantner 1995).

Given these assumptions, the distribution of great houses can be used to evaluatethe strength of the relationship between political centralization and the contextual factorsoutlined above. There are several factors that suggest that this relationship is fairly robust.First, with the exception of Muddy Water, there is only one great house in each of thenorthern communities (Table 3), and the pattern would be complete for the Pueblo IIperiod if the smaller great houses in Muddy Water are demonstrated to have been occu-pied at the very end of Pueblo II, as the mean ceramic dating suggests (Table 2). In con-trast, southern communities typically have two or more great houses that appear to havebeen in use at the same time (Tables 2 and 3). Second, great houses in the north are larger,consisting of greater numbers of larger rooms than their counterparts in southern commu-nities (Table 2). This pattern suggests that a larger and more centralized labor force wasused in their construction. Finally, only one great kiva and relatively few small kivas arefound in each northern community, while southern communities generally have two ormore great kivas and many more small kivas (Table 3). This pattern not only suggests that

20

Number of Soil Soil Number of Great House

Habitations Evenness Quality Great Houses Size

Number of Habitations

1.00

Soil Evenness 0.47 1.00

Soil Quality 0.44 0.75 1.00

Number of Great Houses

-0.14 -0.42 0.17 1.00

Great House Size 0.25 0.37 0.33 -0.16 1.00

Table 4: Correlations between soil characteristics and community structure in the studyarea.

the northern communities exhibited a more centralized religious structure than thosecommunities south of Lobo Mesa, but it may also indicate that ideology and religionplayed a direct role in this political centralization.

One-tailed T-tests assuming unequal variances demonstrate that most of thesepatterns are significant at a 0.05 level or less (Tables 2 and 3). These T-tests should beregarded as merely illustrative, as the sample sizes are small and the results thereforesensitive to data quality. In general, however, the patterns contrasting northern andsouthern communities appear to be genuine, and these patterns support the contentionthat northern communities were more highly centralized than southern communities, aspredicted by the actor-based model of political competition.

A more direct comparison between soil quality and the quantity and sizes of greathouses in each community further support the hypothesis that the specific contexts ofnorthern communities contributed to their political centralization. There is a correlation of-.42 between soil evenness and the number of great houses found in the communitiesoccupying each soil area in the study area; out of several variables, soil evenness actuallyprovides the strongest relationship with the number of great houses in each community(Table 4). This suggests that as the evenness, or variability, of each soil area increases, thenumber of great houses in each community occupying those soil areas decreases, indicat-ing greater centralization. This correlation would be much higher if the spatial extent ofthe soils and water availability were considered, for these are further contextual factorsthat would have contributed to political centralization in the areas of heterogeneous soils.Future analyses will employ the Geographic Information System for further quantificationof these variables.

21

Discussion and Conclusion

The data available so far suggest that the actor-based model of political competitionmay be useful for interpreting the development of political centralization and increasingcomplexity among Anasazi groups exhibiting Chacoan traits. The model suggests that avariety of local contextual factors, some temporal and others static, can stimulate thesudden emergence of political competition and cause sociopolitical change. These contex-tual factors may vary from location to location, or from time to time, leading to differinglevels of competition and political development in areas as close as 10 or 20 kms. fromeach other. The key to this kind of model is to examine the opportunities available to allmembers of any given group, many who are covertly or overtly competing for additionalpersonal authority and power while trying to prevent others from acquiring the same.

In the example of the Chaco Anasazi groups in the study area, inequality and politi-cal centralization seem to have been largely attributable to the development of unequalproduction. The question remains, however, as to how the additional surpluses wereactually used and translated into power and authority. There are several possibilities thatrequire further investigation. First, these surpluses could have been reinvested in devel-oping obligations among other community members, such as during periods of short-termenvironmental variability. These obligations could have been used to further enhanceproduction through agricultural work-parties, or they could have been used for buildingprestige-enhancing structures such as the great houses, as Sebastian (1992) has suggested.Similarly, the surpluses could have been used to construct agricultural infrastructure, suchas irrigation facilities, for further increasing both productivity and prestige. The surplusesmay have also been useful for acquiring rare prestige goods, perhaps through direct ex-change or through the sponsorship of feasting events that provided opportunities for gift-giving and trade. The larger great houses and higher quantities of trade items found in thenorthern communities support this hypothesis (Fig. 7). Finally, surpluses could have beeninvested in attempts to expand the power and authority of the leader through competitionwith other nearby communities. The identification of small isolated great houses on ridgesbetween three of the northern communities may be significant in this regard (Fig. 2).These likely represented a new form of intercommunity interaction not seen in the areasouth of Lobo Mesa. Unfortunately, whether this interaction was positive or negativecannot be determined using the present evidence.

An important point that this actor-based model of political competition raises is thatthe development of multi-village polities can be usefully regarded as the result of competi-tion for increasingly powerful forms of leadership. In the case of the Chaco Anasazi, mostof the previous explanations of cultural development have relied on the role of environ-mental change and group adaptation in polity formation. From the perspective advocatedin this paper, competition between aspiring leaders can lead to increasingly complex formsof sociopolitical organization, perhaps even to the detriment of group adaptation. At thesame time, the model suggests that shared cultural traits need not necessarily indicateintegration into a single polity, but may instead represent the vagaries of alliance forma-tion and dissolution and the sharing of ideological forms of authority and power. As this

22

Kin Sani

CoyotesSing Here

Blue J

Andrews

Haystack

Tse BeeKintsoh

Redonda

Coolidge

Dalton Pass Muddy Water

Kin Ya'a

Bluewater Spring

HostaButte

San Juan Basin

Key:Community

Hamlet

Edge of Lobo Mesa

tN mN

0 2500 5000

meters

Casamero

Figure 7: Trend surface illustrating the distribution of turquoise, shell, and WashingtonPass chert imported into the study area. White indicates areas of higher density, whileblack indicates areas without any imported items.

23

study suggests, the characteristic traits of Chacoan Anasazi groups may have been a resultof political competition rather than cooperative group unification, with some Anasazicommunities in the northern Southwest engaged in closer relations with Chaco Canyonthan were others. Future research may find it useful to look at the specific mechanisms bywhich the many disparate groups in the San Juan Basin and beyond began to interact andshare the set of cultural traits that characterize the Chaco phenomenon.

Despite some intriguing patterns, this study cannot demonstrate any definitiveconclusions regarding either causality in polity development or the specific evolution ofthe Chaco Anasazi. To begin to accomplish this, more diachronic work is needed in otherareas outside of Chaco Canyon that exhibit Chacoesque traits. This study does suggest,however, that further investigations might profit by considering other models besides thegroup selectionist and adaptationist approaches traditionally used for interpretingChacoan evolution. This is not to say that the latter should be completely disregarded, butrather that factors other than the environment and group behavior should also be consid-ered.

24

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