Person:

Dobereiner, Jeffrey Charles

This dissertation explores the key role of identity in the emergence of social complexity. The superordinate identity categories that linked previously disparate social communities are defined herein as "world civilizations," and the material culture of the Mesoamerican example is studied through the interpretive lens of "poetics." The dissertation outlines surprising material heterogeneity within the Preclassic (1000 BC - AD 250) Maya and Olmec heartlands and demonstrates that the region can be better understood as a series of localized interpretations of an emergent Mesoamerican "world civilization." This offers theoretical and cultural context for data from Rancho Búfalo, Chiapas, Mexico, an archaeological site located in the Usumacinta River valley, which has been proposed as a possible Preclassic frontier between Olmec and Maya peoples. Varied data on architecture, ceramics, obsidian, and ritual deposits are compared with other sites and regions to seek affinities with Rancho Búfalo. Special attention is paid to cases where more than one region’s material traditions are found to be expressed within a particular material category.

The data presented on Rancho Búfalo are the result of four seasons of fieldwork in and around the site as well as the laboratory analysis of artifacts recovered from these excavations. The five-hectare site core contained a diverse set of low-mounded masonry and earthen structures, including a single pyramid and a ballcourt. These data offer a contribution to archaeology of the Mesoamerican Preclassic and can be used to study early cultural formations in this region. By contextualizing these findings through a reassessment of Formative Mesoamerica more broadly, this dissertation argues that the emergence of complex society is predicated on diverse communities integrating a superordinate identity category that cross-cuts traditional divisions. This bottom-up model contrasts with top-down approaches to early complexity that emphasize conflict, monopolization of resources, or elite exploitation.

The results demonstrate that Rancho Búfalo, far from fitting neatly into a single regional category, drew upon material traditions from a broad range of centers and regions. The site plan was a local Usumacinta interpretation of broader Southern Mesoamerican architectural traditions. The ceramic slips most resembled the Northern Lowlands, and ceramic iconography evoked both the Southern Lowlands and Gulf Coast Region. The obsidian networks they used and their burial traditions most resembled the Southern Lowlands, however, the figurine traditions strongly evoke the Northern Lowlands. While this suggests Rancho Búfalo was a "frontier" site, the unexpected heterogeneity in Formative period sites across these essentialized regions suggest that current systems of classification are insufficient. This diversity can be understood most readily through an alternative model where sites responded in a localized manner to emergent Mesoamerican culture currents, both in the Rancho Búfalo case and in Southern Mesoamerica more broadly. This multiscalar approach can be usefully applied to a variety of archaeological contexts, including incorporative frontiers of emergent social complexity worldwide.