1 Home Turf: Archaeology, Territoriality, and Politics

Abstract

Archaeological studies of political life have often assumed that the control of territory is an inherent aspect of social power, particularly within complex polities. Frustration with the rigid territorialism of archaeological approaches to politics has fostered enthusiasm for alternative models of political space, including networks. While we concur with this frustration, we argue that territorial models should still be integral to archaeological studies of political landscapes. However, archaeologists should reframe the control of territory as one of many modalities through which authority can be claimed and reproduced and focus attention on variability in territorial patterns and processes. In this introduction, we review previous approaches to territoriality in anthropology and corollary fields, outline dimensions of variability in territorial behaviors and institutions, and provide a foundation for the series of essays in this volume, which collectively seek to invigorate the study of territoriality in anthropological archaeology. [territoriality, archaeological theory, landscape archaeology]

The Work of Boundaries: Critical Cartographies and the Archaeological Record of the Relatively Recent Past

“…On the other hand, archaeologists paradoxically seem to see evidence of borders everywhere. Happily, a consensus is slowly growing around a set of four principles and terms in the analysis of borders (Parker 2006, Smith 2003, VanValkenburgh & Osborne 2012. The first principle widely held by archaeologists is the necessity of avoiding logical inferences that equate the presence of built border features with the stability of political territory and constraints on mobility and, conversely, that equate the lack of built border features with an absence of territorial claims or rampant mobility.…”

The Supply Side Determinants of Territory and Conflict

“…Outside of economics, territory is a central concept in the academic study of conflict. In political science, anthropology, and biology, a large literature is devoted to understanding the nature and scope of territory (Mitani et al, 2010;VanValkenburgh and Osborne, 2012;Vasquez, 2012;Toft, 2014;Johnson and Toft, 2014;Glowacki et al, 2017;Bonadonna et al, 2017). Yet territory has been understudied by the economic literature on conflict.…”

Territorial Expansion in the Virú State: Updating Old Settlement Patterns to Explore New Ideas

“…Additionally, not all states pursue territorial expansion; there are varying degrees of power and control within any polity, authority may be contested by various state and non-state actors, and it is overly-simplistic to assume that all early states resemble a pattern of a single powerful capital holding sway evenly across a bounded territory (Campbell 2009;Chabot-Hanowell and Smith 2013;Claessen and Hagesteijn 2012;Dillehay 2014aDillehay , 2014bFalconer and Redman 2009;Feinman 1998;Glatz 2009;Honeychurch 2014;Kristiansen 2010;Osborne 2013;Renfrew 1986;Richards-Rissetto and Landau 2014;Routledge 2014; M.L. Smith 2005Smith , 2007Van Valkenburgh and Osborne 2013;Yoffee 2013). In response to such criticisms, Spencer (2014) emphasizes that the territorial-expansion model, as he developed it, refers only to primary or first-generation states.…”