Posted on 01/08/2023 10:24:41 PM PST by SunkenCiv
More than 500 years ago in the midwestern Guatemalan highlands, Maya people bought and sold goods with far less oversight from their rulers than many archeologists previously thought.
...the ruling K'iche' elite took a hands-off approach when it came to managing the procurement and trade of obsidian by people outside their region of central control.
In these areas, access to nearby sources of obsidian, a glasslike rock used to make tools and weapons, was managed by local people through independent and diverse acquisition networks. Overtime, the availability of obsidian resources and the prevalence of craftsmen to shape it resulted in a system that is in many ways suggestive of contemporary market-based economies...
She performed geochemical and technological analysis on obsidian artifacts excavated from 50 sites around the K'iche' capital of Q'umarkaj and surrounding region to determine where the raw material originally came from and techniques of its manufacture.
He results showed that the K'iche' acquired their obsidian from similar sources in the Central K'iche' region and Q'umarkaj, indicating a high degree of centralized control. The ruling elite also seemed to manage the trade of more valuable forms of nonlocal obsidian, particularly Pachua obsidian from Mexico, based off its abundance in these central sites.
Outside this core region though, in areas conquered by the K'iche, there was less similarity in obsidian economic networks. Horowitz's analysis suggests these sites had access to their own sources of obsidian and developed specialized places where people could go to buy blades and other useful implements made from the rock by experts.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
So they colonized us?
They relied on the Obsidian Order.
A free market economy is a natural occurrence.
Many, many moons ago I had a double college major of Spanish and archaeology. Eventually I realized that archaeology would never find a mortgage. As part of the studies, I was able to participate in a Central American Mayan excavation. When I first started reading and studying the Maya, there was much speculation that the Maya were very peaceful, trading between great City States. I did not argue with professors back then that, being human, there might be a few City States that wanted more than just trade. Later on some of the City States that lasted longer, well, we discovered they were building walls around their area. Since walls were a later development in the overall history of the City, one could wonder just what made them think of, have to build walls. Yes, even the Maya made war on each other.
The Maya accomplished amazing things. They built observatories and tracked the planets and the stars. They tracked Venus for over 400 years. Did you know that Venus, from our view, has phases where it is brighter? No, theydid not have the scientific method, but they sure were interesting.
The marketplace is one of the three basic elements of any healthy society. (The other two being, of course, the family and the church.)
The Pilgrims almost died from socialism, changed to free market capitalism and flourished resulting in the first feast of Thanksgiving
I wanted to go into archaeology as history was and is my passion.
But I was told before joining that it wouldn’t pay the bills and so I went for engineering instead. Sometimes I do regret it, but only sometimes :)
My first thought as well; but the article seems to be a follow-on to an earlier understanding that the large obsidian reserves had already attracted government oversight. So the writer is commenting on — surprise! — the rest of the local economy remaining relatively organic.
I mnajored in Archaeology in my first two yars at U but was turned off by the prfessors and teaching assistants who were all ardent socialists even then- 1964.
Our “educators” teach that all civilizations were collectivist until the white robber barons showed up in the 19th century.
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