The Impact of Raiding on Settlement Patterns in the Northern Valley of Oaxaca: An Approach Using Decision Trees

Abstract

A growing body of data indicates that armed conflict played a role in the creation of complex societies such as chiefdoms and states (Wright 1984; Spencer 1998). For example, according to Wright (1977:382), "most ethnographically reported chiefdoms seem to be involved in constant warfare," and large chiefdoms grew by absorbing their weaker neighbors. Marcus and Flannery suggest that warfare was often used to create a state out of rival chiefdoms: . . . We do not believe that a chiefdom simply turns into a state. We believe that states arise when one member of a group of chiefdoms begins to take over its neighbors, eventually turning them into subject provinces of a much larger polity. (Marcus and Flannery 1996:157) . . . As an example of this process, the authors cite Kamehameha's creation of a Hawaiian state out of five to seven rival chiefdoms between 1782 and 1810. They suggest that something similar happened in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, when a chiefdom in the Etla region seized the defensible mountain top of Monte Albán and began systematically subduing rival chiefdoms in the southern and eastern parts of the valley. If this is the case, there should be a point in the sequence when considerations of defense began to influence settlement choice. In this chapter, our goal is to provide a preliminary description of our efforts in testing the suitability of this model to the Oaxacan case, and its potential use as the basis for a more general model of state formation. In order to test this hypothesis we need some way to operationalize it in terms of the archaeological record in the Valley of Oaxaca. The key phases of the model can be expressed as follows: 1. An early period in which raiding was minimal, and variables relevant to successful agriculture predominate in settlement choices. 2. A gradual rise in friction between social groups prior to state formation. This friction can be represented by archaeological evidence for raiding, the principle form of warfare in tribes and chiefdoms.