The Evolution of Complexity in The Valley of Oaxaca

Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1990.
19:39-58
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THE EVOLUTION OF COMPLEXITY

IN THE VALLEY OF OAXACA
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1990.19:39-58. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
Stephen A. K owalewski
Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602
KEY WORDS: Oaxaca, complexity, state evolution, central-place hierarchy
INTRODUCTION
This article is directed toward those interested in the comparative study of

how complex societies develop--urban and historical geographers, urban
historians and sociologists, social and economic historians, or anthropologists
in or out of Mesoamerican archaeology. It concentrates on aspects of com
plexity that can be most readily compared cross-culturally. Specifically the
article describes formal characteristics of settlement hierarchies in the Valley
of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico, from their beginnings at about 1500 Be until
the Spanish Conquest 3000 years later. I omit the archaeological and an
alytical details and the intricate variations since a book-length review of the
prehistory of the Valley and the adjacent Mixteca Alta and a technical
monograph on the archaeological settlement patterns have recently been
published (32, 45). Even without their details, the new archaeological studies
of regions make it apparent that social science theories about state and urban
evolution need to be upgraded to account for unexpected variation and
unforeseen regularities.
By complexity I mean the multiplicity of different parts in a social system
(12; cf 52 for a formal approach to cultural complexity). To monitor complex
ity one must be able to identify parts, specify that they are different, be sure
that one has all the parts, count them, and ascertain that they form a system.
Meeting these five data requirements is not easy, with either historical or
archaeological data. The realm of the social is complex in this sense with its
39
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40 KOWALEWSKI
multiplicity of individual and household roles or statuses, its division of labor,

its array of institutions, and its functionally distinct communities. In principle
all these dimensions are accessible through archaeological data. But for the
Valley of Oaxaca we still have few data sets on burial treatment, households,
economic specializations, or nonhousehold architecture that are systematic,
representative of the whole regional society, and that cover many time
periods.
At present for the Valley of Oaxaca only settlement-pattern data meet (with
certain reservations) my above-stated requirements for monitoring complexity
through time. Here the parts comprising the system are human settlements,
identifiable and datable through their surface remains. We can specify that
these parts differ in artifacts, major and minor architecture, settlement layout,
location, and so on. The settlements have been systematically enumerated and
described by a thorough archaeological survey. We can assess the degree to
which they form a system by finding boundaries (the region changed its
boundaries over time, but generally its edge was marked by fall-off in
settlement density), by studying flows of goods among them, and by showing
concerted change in settlement patterns over time.
Anthropological interest in the evolution of hierarchy traces from the noble
questions of state origins and cultural evolution, with recent, useful input
from systems theory (30), organization theory (39, 84), and geography (38,
74). Anthropology and geography share close parallels in subject matter,
disciplinary history, and the adoption of new fashions in method and theory
(25; 45:3; cf 79). Central-place analysis, an important tool for understanding
past regions, seems passe in geography (23, 76). Besides exegesis of the
classics (63), a few geographers continue to explore properties of formal
central-place models (e.g. 53, 54, 57) to make them broader and more general
(5), or to apply them either in Third World countries (e.g. 35, 36) or, rarely,
in archaeological cases (7).
The sociologist Rozman (66) and historians de Vries (22) and Bairoch (6)
have published comparative, empirical studies of systems of cities that
changed over periods of several hundred years. Issues of completeness, scale,
and time-depth make some studies (e.g. 18, 19, 67, 68; various local histo
ries) less appropriate for comparative purposes. Despite calls for regional
approaches in urban history (e.g. 77), this field, like urban anthropology,
concentrates on cities and people in cities, not on systems of cities (23). In
these literatures, descriptions of settlement hierarchies that can be traced over
the long term are surprisingly few.
In Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas, the duration of complex societies and
urbanism and their periods of original variety extend beyond the reach of
documentary history. Prehistoric cases should enrich the content of models of
regional development, broaden them, and make tht:m more powerful, flex-
EVOLUTION OF COMPLEXITY 41
ible, and realistic. One obvious topic is variation in long-tenn urban develop
ment. The historians Hohenberg & Lees (37:57) complain of the almost
mythical beginning points postulated in some fonnal models: "the idea of
'distributed' or isolated centers seems to be a fiction of modem geographers

trying to situate in the past a starting point for their central place model."
Johnston's (41) "let us assume . . . " chapter on the evolution of preindustrial
urban systems, in which the sizes of centers are said to depend on the
agricultural surplus of hinterlands and the amount of tribute, and Rozman's
(66:35-37) developmental Stage A, consisting of an undifferentiated mass of
villages, are other examples of fictions created to fill gaps in knowledge. In
fact, typical sizes, functions, and locations of centers in early urban systems
are highly variable over time, and they often do not correlate with local
agricultural productivity; further, early farming villages were parts of systems
with central places.
Systematic archaeological studies of urbanized regions were spawned by
Steward (78) and begun in the 1950s (best reviewed in 85; also 3, 59). While
social scientists who relied on the comparative method could jump from one
case or period to another in order to construct plausible sequences of evolu
tionary stages, those of us who did archaeology had the good or bad fortune to
be stuck with our chosen regions. As a result, the new archaeological studies
of regions provide infonnation that no theory prior to the 1970s envisioned:
periodic, systematic "censuses" and descriptions of virtually all of a society's
central places, extending from pre-village times to the modem era.
From 1971 to 1980 the Valley of Oaxaca Settlement Pattern Project (45)
walked this entire Valley, using surface techniques to find all the big sites
(and most of the small ones), thus avoiding the stupendous expense of
excavating thousands of holes to achieve dubious results. The Valley is ideal
for the surface-mapping of archaeological sites. Erosion is not so great as to
obliterate remains of settlements, and alluviation obscures sites only in a few
areas. Constant agricultural and domestic use of the land has turned up pottery
from all periods. The limits of settlements occupied during several periods
can be mapped individually from the pottery on the ground. Excavations at a
variety of sites (32) help us interpret the surface data. Population estimates
rely mainly on the areal extent of surface material dating to one phase and
secondarily on the density or character of features. The assumed density range
for most sites is 10-25 persons per ha; this may be too low for some towns
(60:69-72; 69:34-40).
These data have limitations that should be recognized at the outset. They
are strongest for the preponderant trends of settlement over the long run. The
chronology is limited to 250-300-year intervals. Measurements on individual
sites can be inaccurate, usually erring on the side of underestimating size and
internal variability. The results are not exact, but applying the same method
42 KOWALEWSKI
through all periods gives a relative idea of change in regional patterns. Today
the full-coverage regional survey is the only practical way to describe the
evolution of prehistoric central-place hierarchies (29).
A SKETCH OF THE PREHISTORY
Since the body of this article is about fonnal properties of the central-place
system, it may be helpful to sketch the cultural context. Flannery & Marcus's
(32) volume is the bibliographic source throughout, but I mention several
studies completed since their work.
From initial colonization at the end of the Pleistocene until about 2000 BC,
hunter-gatherers included the Valley in their nomadic range. Gradually,
through artificial selection, several plant species underwent changes that
boosted their productivity for humans (31). A longstanding and reasonable
hypothesis is that sedentism came when the cost-benefit equation tipped in
favor of tending domesticated plants, particularly maize. At any rate the
earliest villages appeared in the second millennium. For several centuries this
was an egalitarian, tribal society of fewer than a thousand people. San Jose
Mogote had already distinguished itself as the largest village, having public
buildings, trade connections to elsewhere in Mesoamerica, and small-scale,
specialized production of crafts (see 58 for specialization in chipped stone).
The political and social hierarchy became more vertically differentiated
after 1000 B.C. San Jose Mogote was then the head town for a chiefdom of
several thousand people (Figure 1, 1st stage). How local or kin groups were
integrated is not clear, but rank differences show up even among the families
of small hamlets.
Monte Alban, the first truly urban place, appeared rather suddenly, on a
conspicuous mountaintop in the center of the Valley, at about 500 BC.
Whether the political apparatus was a state at this time, at 100 BC, or not for
another two or three centuries (at the latest), the: greatest and most rapid
political growth took place between 500 and 100 Be. Blanton and co-workers
( 1 1, 27) see markets of some type developing at this time and playing an
increasingly important role in regional dynamics, but most questions about
political economy in Oaxaca still cannot be answered in satisfying detail.
As elsewhere in Mesoamerica, the Valley's centralized state and primate
capital broke apart around AD 700 (Figure 1, during the period between the
3rd and 4th stages). Population declined, but rebounded to its highest level in
the last centuries before European contact (Figure 1, 4th stage). Politically the
Valley consisted of about 20 petty kingdoms (city-states? cf 14) integrated by
strong economic ties (see 65 for the post-Conquest period).
Since 1980 no major research project has been undertaken on the Valley's
2000-year urban period. (More attention has justifiably been paid to other
regions in the State of Oaxaca.) The Centro Regional de Oaxaca, INAH, has
done many small salvage excavations. Lind & Urcid (49) related architectural
features of 7th-century houses, tombs, and iconography at Lambityeco to
16th-century Zapotec political structure; the final report on these extensive

excavations is still in preparation.
ELEVEN ASPECTS OF THE CENTRAL-PLACE

HIERARCHY
Urban Status
A few scholars might not call what I am about to describe "true cities" or
"urbanism" (see reviews in 22: 11-12; 80:371-99; lingering ambivalence about
Maya urbanism in 8 1). Several recent papers describe Mesoamerican urban
ism ( 10, 5 1). Sanders & Webster (70), following Fox's (33) scheme, classify
Mesoamerican cities as mainly regal-ritual, with a few larger ones being
administrative and none mercantile. Smith (75) criticizes this as being overly
typological and variation-killing.
In population size and functional differentiality in a settlement system,
Oaxaca's cities were like many others around the world. I am not yet certain
about the degree of differentiation, coordinating structure, city vs rural be
havior patterns, personal anonymity, urban political autonomy, or com
mercialization in prehispanic Mesoamerican cities, so I have less confidence
than others who may ignore American Indian cases in comparative con
siderations of urbanism or classify them all by one type. The Oaxacan centers
are typically more than just aggregations of a farming population and its
priest-kings. These cities had special civic, ceremonial, economic, and elite
functions, and their inhabitants were more differentiated and had better access
to scarce goods than those of rural settlements. Rather than limiting the field
of potential comparison by culture-bound definitions of what city behavior
really ought to be, it is better to call cities those places at the top of a region's
central-place hierarchy (9). However, this article is not so concerned with the
nature of the city as it is with systems of cities.
Regional and Urban Scale

The Valley of Oaxaca is a physiographic unit; more, it has had behavioral
significance as a nodal or functional region (as in 34), a quasi-autonomous,
bounded system of central places. The region (historians would say locality)
covers 2 150 km, with a maximum distance from center to edge of 50 krn2• In
regional population and population density, city size, and density within
cities, the Valley was well within the ranges for other preindustrial urban
regions.
44 KOWALEWSKI
Total population varied from a few thousand in the chiefdom period prior to
500 Be, to 15,000-50,000 during the initial urban period, and 70,000-
120,000 during the period AD 250-900. The last period (AD 900-1520) before
the Spanish conquest saw a population of at least 165,000. Regional popula

tion densities ranged from less than one person per km2 in pre-urban times to
77 or more per km2, the latter figure roughly equal to the densities of
Mesopotamia in the Sassanian Empire (2: 180) or Spain in 1970. The Valley
of Oaxaca is a relatively small region and consequently might be thought to
have a high population density simply because its boundary is too tightly
��
•
•
• •
• • -
• • ••
A.D. 1500
-
. •
•
A.D. 450 • >10,000
• 5000 -10,000
• 2500 - 5000
• 1000 - 2500
A.D. 1
1000 B.C.
Figllre 1 Urban evolution in the Valley of Oaxaca. This model is greatly simplified because it
shows only 4 of II distinguishable time periods and because it does not show towns of 200-1000
inhabitants, which had functions in the central place system.
drawn. But this not so. For the several centuries prior to contact, every
surveyed region in the State of Oaxaca except one in the mountains ( 15, 24,
28; 64:37, 162) had a population density equal to or higher than the densities
of Russell's (68:235) large late Medieval European regions. Thus a larger

Oaxaca region centering on the Valley probably would have had a population
density similar to that of pre-Modem European regions of equivalent size.
By AD 450 (Figure 1, 3rd stage) the region averaged one city or town of
over 1000 inhabitants per 100 km2• The leading cities had populations of
5,000--25,000. Densities in some cities and towns varied between 30 and 80
per ha, based on sites for which direct counts of houses or terraces are
possible. Compare this to other Mesoamerican cities: Tenochtitlan 120--170

per ha, Teotihuacan 80 per ha, Copan 50--100 per ha (70), Tenam Rosario 88
per ha (21:230), and Mayapan 28 per ha (6 1). Most late Medieval European
cities had densities in the 70--125 per ha range (67:63). Near Eastern cities and
towns vary in density by size and geography (plateau, hills, plain), with the
larger having densities of 125-250 per ha or more, and others usually in the
50--150 per ha range ( 1:24-25; 2:349-50; 47:155-81).
Index of Urbanization
The percentage of the Valley of Oaxaca popUlation living in urban centers
seems high compared to preindustrial Europe and Asia, but is is not out of line
with other ancient cases. How the index is interpreted depends on the urban
threshold adopted (Table 1). The percentage of the total population living in
places of more than 1000 persons generally increased through time, the
percentage in places over 5000 stayed about the same, and the percentage in
places over 10,000 declined slightly. This reversal in temporal trends depend-
Table 1 Indexes of urbanization for the

Valley of Oaxaca
Percentage of total population

in centers of more than:
Period 1000 2500 5000 10,000
1520 56 42 35 23
900 77 52 32 23
650 76 55 37 31
450 64 43 30 2S
AD 250 50 35 35 35
Be 100 43 34 34 34
300 36 36 36 0
500 0 0 0 0
700 70 0 0 0
1150 0 0 0 0
46 KOWALEWSKI
ing on which threshold one adopts is due to thf: fact that the early urban
system was dominated by one center, and later on the system had more small
cities and towns. The general trend toward increasing urbanization postulated
by Rozman (66:282) holds only if the threshold is set at 1000.

In two thirds of the periods since the earliest cities the index of urbanization
was between 50% and 77% (threshold of 1000). In two thirds of the periods
for 5000 years in Mesopotamia the index varied between 43% and 70%, with
a high of 90% and a low of 36% (2). Comparable figures for the Valley of
Mexico for 1800 years range between 60% and 75% (69).
These three ancient cases differ from Europe since AD 1000, which appears
to have been more rural on the whole. The seven largest cities in all of
England in 1086 ranged between 17,800 and 2300 in population, and even by
1377 London had only 35,000 people (67:69). The Valley of Oaxaca had
about the same scale of urbanism in a small region as England had for the
whole country. European data (37:9, 84, 1 10) show indexes of less than 15%
between AD 1500 and 1800 (thresholds of 5000 and 10,000); de Vries (22:39)
has the percentage in places over 10,000 at no greater than 2 1% in 1500 and
no greater than 28% in 1800. "China was the most urbanized society in the
world" in the 13th century (26: 177), with 6-10% of the population in cities of
100,000 or more. Nineteenth-century China had proportions generally under
10% (the total urban population, however, was in the tens of millions) (73:
223ff). While these crude rates could suggest lower urbanization than in
Oaxaca, the threshold is higher, and historically China's rural areas have been
heavily commercialized.
Variation in the urban proportion within the same broad culture-area may
be a telling statistic (cf 22:39), but it is somewhat suspicious when used across
different cultural contexts. Also, the European and Chinese data just cited
pertain to continental or national areas instead of smaller regions. Rozman
presents urbanization indexes for late preindustrial England (21%), Japan
( 18%), France ( 16%), Russia (9%), and China (7%) (66:245, 281). One could
not rule out the factor of territory size, since the higher indexes are for the
smaller countries, as he noted. This may apply to Mesopotamia and the
Valleys of Oaxaca and Mexico. Furthermore, df: Vries concluded that be
tween 1500 and 1800 the percentage of European population living in cities
moved little while the urban system grew and changed in important structural
ways, so very different urban systems can have similar urbanization rates.
Number of Hierarchical Levels

In Christaller's central-place theory there are dear-cut classes of centers
(20:59-60); modifications such as Losch's (50:437) have continuous size
distributions. The division of size distributions into discrete classes is more or
less arbitrary, and here I use two techniques. One is a completely arbitrary
scheme with intervals of 1000 and 10,000; the other forms classes by follow
ing natural breaks in histogrammed distributions.
Using the constant, arbitrary intervals of popUlation size, the Valley had
four levels of centers, which developed in scale first from the top, then in the
middle intervals, and last in all intervals. The earliest phases had a simple
hierarchy with a single large town. Next, the hierarchy built quickly from the
top down, then fattened up the middle levels. In the last prehispanic period it
grew in numbers of sites in all intervals.
The same intervals can be used to compare the Valley of Oaxaca to the
Valley of Mexico (69). The latter's hierarchy tended to be dominated by more
and larger centers in the top interval. The Valley of Oaxaca usually had more
middle and lower-order centers than, and as many centers above 1000 persons
as the Valley of Mexico, a much larger, more populous area. One difference
is Mexico's megacenters, Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan, which had over
150,000 people; but even without these cities the two regions are structured
differently. The Valley of Oaxaca is not simply the Valley of Mexico without
Teotihuacan.
Using an arbitrary lower population limit of 1000 ignores smaller places
whose urban functions may be important ( 13, 55).Towns as small as 100-200
inhabitants probably had functions in the Valley's urban network. Defining
size classes by "natural breaks" in size distributions is more sensitive to the
smaller centers and to the nature of urbanization in particular regions. Our
project divided the centers of the earliest urban period into four size classes.
This number increased to seven by the end of the sequence. The size classes
are usually fairly discrete and make sense in terms of spacing and other
attributes, though typically not much information is lost if two size classes at
the lower end are combined. We found it analytically convenient to use
between four and six size classes, as Hohenberg & Lees (37:5 1) did for
Europe.
The number of levels in the civic-ceremonial or administrative hierarchy,
determined by architectural features instead of settlement size, grew from the
chiefdom through the state periods. The former had up to about three levels,
while the latter had between four and six.
Rank-Size
The rank-size curve for settlements can be of three general types: log-normal
or rank-size; primate, in which there is one dominating city; and convex, in
which centers tend to be similar in size (8, 40, 43). The Oaxaca sequence
divides into three periods for rank-size characteristics. An initial primate
pattern lasted from earliest sedentism through the first 750 years of urbanism
(to AD 250). Primacy can be a stable form, since it lasted well over 1500
years, from the origins of social ranking well into the period of the state. The
48 KOWALEWSKI
middle period of about 700 years had more or less log-normal patterns. The
final, petty-kingdom period had a strongly convex curve.
This movement from primate to rank-size to convex distribution is related
to permeability of regional boundaries, scale of the regional system, and

manner and degree of interaction among centers (44). The primate systems of
the early periods were relatively closed and fairly small; much of the interac
tion took place through the primate center. The rank-size systems of the
middle period were somewhat more open and larger; they involved more
interaction among functionally differentiated centers. The convex pattern of
the final period is associated with open boundaries, large scale, and intensive
internal and external interaction.
Span of C ontrol
Here I refer to the number of centers of the next lowest order dominated by or
in the territory of a high-order center, a variable roughly similar to Losch's k,
Parr's s (56), or Skinner's span of control (73:305).
Ratios of higher- to lower-order places in the Valley are irregular from the
top to the bottom of the settlement hierarchy. Higher-order centers typically
had rather few centers beneath them in the next order. The ratios of higher- to
lower-order places are generally 1:3 or narrower, not as wide as in Rozman's
sample of late preindustrial cities (66:223, 245). The Valley's earlier urban
period averaged about 1:2.5, while the later periods averaged consistently
around I :2. If we could calculate a meaningful ratio for the pre-urban period it
would be 1:3 or wider. Thus span-of-control values appear to be low and to
decline over time. Some aspects of the spatial patterning resemble Christall
er's separation or administrative principle (20:77-80), but the narrow span of
control does not conform to the k 7 expectation. It better resembles a k 3
= =
marketing pattern. Oaxacan marketing institutions probably date back to the

earliest urban period. However, not until the last prehispanic period is there
evidence from spatial patterning and artifact distributions to suggest a market
ing system with settlement patterns close to the ideal model (4, 45).
The number of centers between 1000 and 10,000 people per city of over
10,000 usually varied between 7.0 and 9.6. The number of central places
smaller than WOO per mid-level town was high in the early urban periods
(averaging 14.9) but low in the later periods (averaging 4.1). The patterns are
consistent with the heavily administrative or civic-ceremonial character of the
leading centers and the rising commercial importance of middle- and lower
level centers in the later periods.
For the periods when the region was politically centralized, spans of control
in the administrative hierarchy, which is analytically independent of the
settlement-size hierarchy, average 5.5 second-order centers to one primary
center, 3.7 third-order centers to each secondary center, and 2.2 tertiary
centers to each quaternary center. The narrowing in span through the ranks
could be due to small territory size. Ancient Oaxaca had writing, but as far as
we know writing was not used for bureaucratic or accounting purposes. The
narrow spans of control may be related to a less-developed administrative

bureaucracy, but this line of research has scarcely been pursued.
Vertical C omplexity
Vertical complexity in settlement hierarchies is a measure of the degree to
which central places differ in composition depending on their hierarchical
level. Information on the composition of centers comes from excavations and
surface survey and consists of common and exotic artifacts and architectural
groups of plazas and pyramid-mounds. Interpretation of site function can
become very involved, so I simply summarize the main conclusions.
Lower-order towns were not small versions of larger cities, and the cities
were not small centers writ large. Especially after AD 250 and to a lesser
extent even before, central places at different levels were functionally dis
tinct. Temples-larger or smaller-existed at all levels of the hierarchy (51),
but state administration, marketing, and craft manufacture were more segre
gated. Although one expects agricultural specializations to have been most
significant in this region, historically a breadbasket, we know almost nothing
about them except by circumstantial evidence. Direct indications about
specialization are limited to enduring but petty items like pottery and flaked
stone tools.
The leading (primate) centers from almost the beginning of sedentism until
about AD 650 were qualitatively and quantitatively distinct from all other
centers. They possessed by far the greatest concentration of civic-ceremonial
architecture, art related to state ideology, exotic goods, and craft man
ufactures; and they had the best access to the widest range of utilitarian goods.
The primate center served as regional capital and means of articulation to the
rest of Mesoamerica. After AD 650 such functions were more evenly dispersed
in several competing centers.
Secondary and tertiary cities and towns were centers of subregional or local
importance. They serviced and dominated subregions and connected these to
the state, but they probably lacked pan-Mesoamerican functions. They had
impressive art and architecture, but these were more limited than at the
regional capital. In the earlier periods these centers differed markedly from
each other and from the primary center in access to a variety of goods; in the
later periods they gained in relative access to goods. In the middle and later
periods they had market functions.
Centers below the tertiary level did not have the plaza space, elaborate
architectural complexes, and artifacts associated with the marketing and
multiple administrative functions of larger cities. Often these centers had
50 KOWALEWSKI
limited civic-ceremonial or special boundary functions. This functional differ

entiation among smaller centers may be relevant to the narrow spans of
control discussed above, an observation that also applies to the next topic.
H oriz ontal C omplexity

Horizontal complexity is a measure of the degree to which central places at
the same hierarchical level differ in composition. I again summarize what can
be a very involved interpretation.
Oaxaca had few examples of centers designed to the same plan. Most
groupings of civic-ceremonial architecture had no close copies anywhere.
Core/periphery, intensive vs marginal agriculture, gateway, boundary, and

defensive functions differentiated centers at the same level from one another.
In the earlier periods horizontal differentiation among centers was most
obvious between large geographical subareas such as core and periphery. By
the last period, horizontal differentiation occurred simultaneously in multiple
criteria and the region was a finer mosaic of neighboring centers with differ
ing functions.
Another way of looking at horizontal complexity is to measure the con
gruence between population size and position in the administrative or civic
ceremonial hierarchy. Until about 300 Be the two hierarchies were fairly
isomorphic, but after that time a center's administrative importance was not
well correlated with its popUlation size. Especially after AD 250, towns and
cities were more varied in function than would be expected if they were
structured only by their political, agricultural, or demographic importance.
Spatial Patterns
The Valley of Oaxaca, unlike Mesopotamia or the Valley of Mexico, had
physiographically distinct and separate, semiautonomous subregions (the
north, south, and east), usually integrated by the high-order city in the
Valley's center. The central-place systems of the subregions differed strong
ly. There was always one "city-rich" subregion, though it shifted from north
to south to east (Figure 1).
In the earlier periods the spatial arrangements of centers were linear, rather
than lattice-like, networks. More complex, nonlinear arrangements evolved
after AD 250, when a triangular axis of centers tied together the southern and
eastern subregions with the Valley center, and other centers ringed the
frontiers (Figure 1, 3rd stage). In the last period a more complex lattice
formed, evident especially in the spacing of secondary and tertiary centers.
This development of more complex lattices closer to those predicted by
classical central-place theory was associated with the growth of markets and
the decline of the regional state (after AD 700), when the balance of gov
ernmental and economic power tilted more toward the commercial side than
the political (cf 71, 72).
Continuity of Occupation
The history of particular towns and cities was anything but static. In 3000
years the region had four different leading centers. Of the 20 largest places at
200 Be, 7 were not in the top 50 250 years later; of the 20 largest places in this
latter period, 9 were not in the top 50 250 years later. The best explanation for
these movements is not local, but involves the changing requirements of the
regional system. De Vries (22: 1 42ff) and Carter (16: 109-12; 17) discuss
similar discontinuities in European urban systems, Carter contrasting the
discontinuity in England and Wales with the continuity Pred (62) observed in
US cities. Carter explains that new centers developed in response to ex
ogenous, technologically inspired transformations. But for Oaxaca, urban

dislocations are not associated with European-style technological transforma
tions or with the fate of irrigation canals as in Mesopotamia. The causes of
discontinuity are more likely to have arisen from within the dynamics of the
regional and greater Mesoamerican political economy.
Centralization
By centralization I mean the degree to which functions concentrate in a single
place rather than being dispersed throughout the population. In Oaxaca
hierarchy did not grow gradually from the bottom up, but in leaps, first by
creating a primate center and only later by adding more tiers of centers
between the largest city and the smallest centers. The evolution of hierarchical
complexity here is not one of increasing centralization, for the primate
systems of the earliest phases were as centralized as can be. Indeed for most
of the sequence the story is about proliferation and decentralization of top
central-place functions.
Some functions originally carried out in households and local communities
were lifted into central places by the earliest urban period. That is, from the
point of view of the lowest level, specific functions were centralized, albeit in
many places. The best evidence of this is in craft manufacture and the
lowest-level civic-ceremonial activities. But the concentration of these func
tions should not be interpreted to mean that centralization generally increased
over time. Greater regional integration and scale were achieved not by overall
centralization but by the developing strength of middle-level centers.
Discussion
These 1 1 characteristics of the urban hierarchy are interrelated. The main
secular trend was from centralized to decentralized regional organization,
evidenced in the primate-ta-convex rank-size curves, linear-to-lattice spatial
patterning, growth and then decline in regional state power, increasing scale
of the system, increasing permeability of its boundaries, increasing com
mercialization, increasing horizontal and vertical differentiation of centers,
52 KOWALEWSKI
and increasing importance of secondary and tertiary centers having control

over local administration, production, and commerce.
The comparatively high proportion of urban population, many centers, and
narrow span of control are less readily interpreted. The narrow span of control
may reflect the large numbers of centers, a small region, a too-inclusive
definition of centers, or inaccurate definition of levels. It could be that a large
proportion of city dwellers carried out activities little different from rural
activities, though in that case their nucleation remains unexplained. But
accepting these data at face value-which I think is most appropriate-it
seems most likely that they are not artifacts of analysis, that the Valley indeed
had comparatively high numbers of central places, high urbanization rates,

and narrow spans of control. Explaining these characteristics will require
more research on the nature and concentration of administrative and economic
activities.
Hierarchical growth in the Valley of Oaxaca cannot be generalized as a
model for Mesoamerica. The Valley of Mexico experience was quite differ
ent. There, the settlement hierarchy tended to grow mainly at the top in the
early periods. In the middle period giant Teotihuacan obliterated the middle of
the hierarchy entirely. Only after Teotihuacan's demise around AD 700, when
the Valley was peripheral to more powerful regions in Central Mexico, did
major growth occur in the middle ranks. Growth of mid-ranking centers was
the basis of Aztec-period urbanism, just as growth of mid-ranking centers was
important over a longer period in Oaxaca. The Maya area, though not as
thoroughly surveyed, clearly had an urban history different from those of the
Valleys of Mexico and Oaxaca. Systems of cities extended over broader,
less-bounded areas. Probably as a consequence, urban primacy was short
lived in the Maya area, and networks of central places developed multiple,
horizontal connections (12:170-221).
UNSOLVED PROBLEMS AND NEW DIRECTIONS
In my opinion none of our current explanations of how complex societies

evolved yet comprehends the prehistoric cases described by the regional
archaeological surveys. Most such explanations are not equipped to reflect the
behaviorally significant variation within a region at one time, between re
gions, or in one or several regions over the long run. Theory and data scarcely
speak to one another. I address here only a few problems of form and
substance.
One difficulty is in perfecting cross-culturally valid dimensions for com
parison. Formal methods developed in geography and other urban studies
have heuristic worth. Rank-size characterizations, for example, can be found
in the journals of a half-dozen disciplines. But besides the feeling of empti-
ness or lack of cultural content inevitable in abstract measures, some may

have built-in biases toward a particular cultural tradition. These biases are not
necessarily pernicious; they may be quite informative. One example is the
index of urbanization. As noted above, the ancient regions appear to have had
a higher proportion of their populations in cities than did historic Europe or
China. Region size has something to do with this, but substantive differences
among the three culture-areas also may have had an effect. In the mid-latitude
Old World, barnyard animals, dairying, cartage, and water transport spread
high-energy economic activities out over rural areas, producing lower urban
proportions than in the pre-Columbian Americas.
Analytical scale factors affect the utility of formal measures. Regions

within culture-areas differ in their city-systems-e.g. in Europe, the south
and the north, the Low Countries, and Poland. Other regularities are particu
lar to whole culture-areas or world-systems: China's emphasis on craft man
ufacture and the great size of its cities, Europe's extraordinary leap from the
1 6th to the 19th centuries, Mesopotamia's canals, or the inelasticity of
Mesoamerica's transportation. Formal measures such as the index of
urbanization or span of control perform well for understanding variation
within broad culture-areas; more caution, but not complete skepticism (e.g.
1 6), is needed when the comparisons are between culture-areas. Formal
conceptualizations of vertical and horizontal complexity need more applica
tion and improvement.
I now tum to the substantive content of concepts used to explain the
evolution of complexity. Theories in wide use today about cultural evolution,
the rise of the state and urbanism, and so on, were formulated when almost
nothing was known about long-term change in actual prehistoric societies.
These ideas relied on the comparative method to bring together into a coherent
framework fragments from ancient history, historical cases shaped by events
since the 1 6th century, and vivid but certainly unrepresentative images from
archaeology. Misleading images from archaeology infected the public and the
scholarly community too.
In its fascination with pyramids, tombs, and inscriptions, has not archaeol
ogy contributed mightily to images of prehistoric civilization as a social
engine for pyramid-building, the pyramid as reflection of the entire social
order, and the view from the top of the pyramid as the best view in the ancient
world? Pyramid-building conjures up an Asiatic mode of production, if not
Oriental despotism. Zapotecs in the Valley of Oaxaca did build over 2000
pyramid-mounds. But to put this in a different light, in the Medieval period
alone, the Dutch, not generally considered to have practiced the Asiatic mode
of production, constructed terpen-earthen platforms-on the coast of Fries
land and Groningen (an area the size of the Valley of Oaxaca) having a
volume an order of magnitude greater than all the pyramids ever built in the
54 KOWALEWSKI
Valley of Oaxaca (48:86-95). The labor required to build all the Valley of
Oaxaca's pyramids apportions out to less than 0.5% of an ancient Zapotec's
work career (46)-hardly the labor of which major social formations are
made.
Many current theories about the evolution of complex societies emphasize
(a) the ability of central political authority (the chiefdom, the state) to control
and determine events, and (b) tribute as the primary economic sector and the
key economic relationship structuring society. In rare prehistoric cases have
these two propositions been demonstrated using systematic data. These ideas
could be true, but they are difficult to demonstrate, and I argue that they are
accepted too readily. When we find scraps of information about the state or
tribute, do we also assess the importance or weight of kin groups, associa
tions, other types of economic exchange, local or community groups, or other
institutions? No, more commonly we assume that such institutions, if they
existed, were totally subsumed by the state, because this is what theory tells
us about early states.
The tributary mode of production (83:79-88) is a useful concept for
cross-cultural generalization. However, even if we can show that tribute
existed in some form in an actual case, it is another matter to show that tribute
structured or determined economy and society. Tribute documents have been
better preserved than other written evidence on the Mesoamerican economy,
but this should not automatically assign lower priority to less paper-proven
institutions of labor or exchange. Archaeological evidence from Oaxaca
bearing on the economy permits inferences about the minimal ranges from
which cities must have been supplied with food; foreign conquest; man
ufactures that vary in scale and central control, points of exchange; patterns of
consumption; spatial relationships among producers, points of exchange,
consumers, and the various branch-offices of the state; and various scales of
local organization. But this information is incomplete and difficult to in
terpret, both theoretically and analytically. Hence a conclusion about a tribute
mode of production, one demonstrable with archaeological and historical
evidence, would be premature. Yet similar attributions of a tributary mode of
production are made all the time for other areas about which we have
considerably less information. For a more familiar example, a reasonable case
can be made that tribute played a smaller role in structuring Aztec society than
did production, exchange, and consumption mediated through the market
system, yet the idea is common that the Aztec state was based on tribute and
tribute enabled the state to rule society, top-down.
What concerns me is that in current social science theories, millennia of
change and variation are often subsumed under one typological concept. The
urban historian Carter (16: 102-4) and the Near Eastern archaeologist Kohl
(42) voice parallel concerns. In the present article I have taken a formal,
somewhat formalist perspective, but the identical call for analytical concepts
sensitive to on-the-ground variation is made by de Montmollin (21), from a
more substantivist perspective. Prehistory had variation, change, reorganiza
tion, tumult, new directions, and regularities unforeseen by us-all of which

made such impact that they become imprinted not only on peoples' lives but
also in the archaeological record. More attention ought to be paid to explain
ing these everyday, archaeological facts, while we continue to "render unto
the tributary mode" when it will do for our broadest purposes.
Regional archaeological surveys are beginning to provide a new kind of
data not available before the 1970s. Prehistoric cases such as the Valleys of
Oaxaca and Mexico, Mesopotamia, the Santa Valley in Peru (82), and others,
display much more variability, complexity, and change than we have imag
ined in proposing our overly broad types and creating theoretical fictions to
fill gaps in our knowledge. These studies offer admittedly more mundane but
scientifically more interesting views of prehistoric civilizations than can be
generated from theoretical fiction. Facts such as the Valley of Oaxaca's high
urbanization indexes, its one town or city of at least 1000 inhabitants for every
100 km2, and the increasing noncongruence through time between its settle
ment and administrative hierarchies raise significant scientific problems; they
also help situate Mesoamerican complex societies among the familiar and the
living instead of the exotic and the dead.
This article treats only the topic of complexity in regional city-systems.
These are important social structures and they can be formalized for cross
cultural comparison, but they are not whole sociocultural systems. At present,
data on other aspects of sociocultural complexity in the Valley of Oaxaca,
while often excellent in detail, are still spotty in coverage. The regional
survey depended at every step on knowledge gained from prior excavations at
particular sites. More excavations and research designed for smaller spatial
scales than the region are an absolute requirement for understanding the
political economy of the urban period. In particular, we need to know more
about nonstate institutions and their relationships to the state; and we know
almost nothing about agriculture and textiles, which must have been the two
most important economic sectors.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Valley of Oaxaca Settlement Pattern Project was supported by the

National Science Foundation and also by the Social Science Research Coun
cil, the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council, the
Universities of Arizona, Arizona State, Georgia, McMaster, Purdue, Wiscon
sin, and the City University of New York. The Instituto Nacional de An
tropologia e Historia, the Centro Regional de Oaxaca, and the people and
municipal governments of the Valley of Oaxaca granted authority to carry out
56 KOWALEWSKI
field work. I thank Richard Blanton, Peter Druijven, Gary Feinman, Laura
Finsten, Jan Hardeman, Charles Hudson, C. P. Lo, Clifton Pannell, Gregory
Veeck, and James Wheeler for commenting on the manuscript. Julie Barnes
Smith drafted the figure.
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Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 1990.

THE EVOLUTION OF COMPLEXITY

KEY WORDS: Oaxaca, complexity, state evolution, central-place hierarchy

This article is directed toward those interested in the comparative study of

multiplicity of individual and household roles or statuses, its division of labor,

'distributed' or isolated centers seems to be a fiction of modem geographers

A SKETCH OF THE PREHISTORY

16th-century Zapotec political structure; the final report on these extensive

ELEVEN ASPECTS OF THE CENTRAL-PLACE

Regional and Urban Scale

the Spanish conquest saw a population of at least 165,000. Regional popula­

A.D. 450 • >10,000

of Russell's (68:235) large late Medieval European regions. Thus a larger

possible. Compare this to other Mesoamerican cities: Tenochtitlan 120--170

Table 1 Indexes of urbanization for the

Percentage of total population

by Rozman (66:282) holds only if the threshold is set at 1000.

Number of Hierarchical Levels

to permeability of regional boundaries, scale of the regional system, and

internal and external interaction.

marketing pattern. Oaxacan marketing institutions probably date back to the

narrow spans of control may be related to a less-developed administrative

limited civic-ceremonial or special boundary functions. This functional differ­

H oriz ontal C omplexity

Core/periphery, intensive vs marginal agriculture, gateway, boundary, and

ogenous, technologically inspired transformations. But for Oaxaca, urban

and increasing importance of secondary and tertiary centers having control

had comparatively high numbers of central places, high urbanization rates,

UNSOLVED PROBLEMS AND NEW DIRECTIONS

In my opinion none of our current explanations of how complex societies

ness or lack of cultural content inevitable in abstract measures, some may

Analytical scale factors affect the utility of formal measures. Regions

tion, tumult, new directions, and regularities unforeseen by us-all of which

The Valley of Oaxaca Settlement Pattern Project was supported by the

Smith drafted the figure.

I. Adams, R. McC. 1965. Land behind in Three Regions. Cambridge: Cam­

Cities: Surveys of Ancient Settlement History, ed. D. Fraser, A. Sutcliffe, pp.

velopment in the prehispanic Valley of Patterson, C. W. Gailey, pp. 27-34.

N. Mex. Press Urban Res. 9( 1 ):60--78

Ecol. Syst. 3: 399-426 ley of Oaxaca, Mexico, Memoirs, No.

Procurement, Production and Use. Asian Stud. 24:195-228

Univ. Mich. Mus. Anthropol . 11(1):63-77

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen

the Spanish conquest saw a population of at least 165,000. Regional popula

limited civic-ceremonial or special boundary functions. This functional differ

I. Adams, R. McC. 1965. Land behind in Three Regions. Cambridge: Cam