Full metadata
Title
The organization and evolution of the Hohokam economy: agent-based modeling of exchange in the Phoenix Basin, Arizona, AD 200-1450
Description
The Hohokam of central Arizona left behind evidence of a culture markedly different from and more complex than the small communities of O'odham farmers first encountered by Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries A.D. Archaeologists have worked for well over a century to document Hohokam culture history, but much about Pre-Columbian life in the Sonoran Desert remains poorly understood. In particular, the organization of the Hohokam economy in the Phoenix Basin has been an elusive and complicated subject, despite having been the focus of much previous research. This dissertation provides an assessment of several working hypotheses regarding the organization and evolution of the pottery distribution sector of the Hohokam economy. This was accomplished using an agent-based modeling methodology known as pattern-oriented modeling. The objective of the research was to first identify a variety of economic models that may explain patterns of artifact distribution in the archaeological record. Those models were abstract representations of the real-world system theoretically drawn from different sources, including microeconomics, mathematics (network/graph theory), and economic anthropology. Next, the effort was turned toward implementing those hypotheses as agent-based models, and finally assessing whether or not any of the models were consistent with Hohokam ceramic datasets. The project's pattern-oriented modeling methodology led to the discard of several hypotheses, narrowing the range of plausible models of the organization of the Hohokam economy. The results suggest that for much of the Hohokam sequence a market-based system, perhaps structured around workshop procurement and shopkeeper merchandise, provided the means of distributing pottery from specialist producers to widely distributed consumers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the results of this project are broadly consistent with earlier researchers' interpretations that the structure of the Hohokam economy evolved through time, growing more complex throughout the Preclassic, and undergoing a major reorganization resulting in a less complicated system at the transition to the Classic Period.
Date Created
2013
Contributors
- Watts, Joshua (Author)
- Abbott, David R. (Thesis advisor)
- Barton, C Michael (Committee member)
- Van Der Leeuw, Sander (Committee member)
- Janssen, Marcus (Committee member)
- Arizona State University (Publisher)
Topical Subject
Geographic Subject
Extent
xiv, 439 p. : ill. (some col.), map
Language
eng
Copyright Statement
In Copyright
Primary Member of
Peer-reviewed
No
Open Access
No
Handle
https://hdl.handle.net/2286/R.I.17899
Statement of Responsibility
by Joshua Watts
Description Source
Retrieved on Nov. 20, 2013
Level of coding
full
Note
thesis
Partial requirement for: Ph.D., Arizona State University, 2013
bibliography
Includes bibliographical references
Field of study: Anthropology
System Created
- 2013-07-12 06:23:37
System Modified
- 2021-08-26 09:47:01
- 3 years 2 months ago
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