The term "tropics" generally invokes images of sweltering heat, heavy rainfall, lush forest and exotic animals, and until relatively recently, small-scale societies subsisting on swidden farming and hunting. These areas of the world have often been perceived, vis-a-vis temperate regions, as presenting unique environmental conditions that constrain the formation and organization of complex polities. With the exception of a few regions, such as lowland Mesoamerica and Polynesia, polities located in tropical regions have generally been considered of little relevance to our theories of the formation and transformation of complex society. This may partially reflect the previous focus on the earliest cases of state formation, which primarily occurred in temperate regions, combined with the primacy, until recently, of the ecosystem approach in American archaeology. The emphasis on populationenvironment interaction to explain stability and change in behavioral systems (see e.g., Brumfiel 1992) may have facilitated a view of complex polities in tropical regions as less than relevant to understanding the earlier development of complex societies in temperate areas.
This chapter examines elite control of foreign and local craft goods in three protohistoric Visayan polities. Eleventh to sixteenth century archaeological data from the Dumaguete polity in the central Philippines reveal changes in its economy against which to evaluate the tributary, prestige goods, and wealth finance political economy models. Dumaguete's economy exhibits similarities to parts of each model. Within the Visayas, Dumaguete's economy resembled the contemporary Cebu and Tanjay polities in chiefly control of the economy and political valuation of foreign goods. However, Dumaguete's economy differed in scale, types of craft goods produced under elite control, valuation of local craft goods, and possibly in the means for acquiring foreign goods during a period which witnessed an increase in trade within the Southeast Asia-China area. Southeast Asian conceptions of power suggest the political authority of Visayan chiefs derived from their ability to exhibit potency; potency and control over the economy may have thus been in a "circular reciprocal relationship."
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.