Classic Maya Obsidian Trade

1976 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 449-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond V. Sidrys
Keyword(s):  
Political Behavior ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Market Exchange ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Transport Efficiency ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Regional Centers ◽  
Organizational Mode ◽  
Art And Architecture

The obsidian artifact distribution in some 13,000 m3 of excavated fill from 17 Maya sites is analyzed. Large regional centers, characterized by abundant monumental art and architecture, have five times more obsidian per capita than do smaller centers. Central place redistribution, rather than central place market exchange (Rathje 1971), appears to be the best organizational mode for this long-distance trade. That is, obsidian in the Late Preclassic-Early Classic was a status good reflecting religious and political behavior. Its everyday use was largely restricted to elite households. By the Late Classic increases in transport efficiency may have permitted a more widespread usage of obsidian.

scholarly journals MANAGERIAL EVALUATION OF THE LOGISTICS PERFORMANCE AND ITS DEPENDENCIES ON ECONOMIES IN SELECTED COUNTRIES

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-27
Author(s):  
Alexandra Filova ◽  
Veronika Hrda
Keyword(s):  
Correlation Coefficient ◽  
Linear Dependence ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Strong Dependence ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Transport Efficiency ◽  
The World ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Logistics Performance Index ◽  
The Individual

The objective of the paper is managerial evaluation of the level of logistics on individual continents and to find out dependence between the level of logistic systems and the level of GDP in the selected countries of the world. To evaluate logistics, we used the Logistics Performance Index and its six categories (customs clearance, infrastructure, international shipment, logistic competencies, monitoring shipment, and satisfaction). The index of gross domestic product was shown per capita and in constant U.S. dollars for 2010. The analyzed period was the years 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018. Together, we analyzed 134 countries from five of the world’s continents. Results are provided separately for the European countries and the Slovak Republic. To find out mutual linear dependence, we used the correlation coefficient. From the results of the research, it is clear that there is a connection between the variables LPI and GDP and thus that there exists a direct linear dependence. Only in one case, that of the African continent in 2018, was the coefficient of correlation close to zero and we had to state that the variables were not linearly dependent. For most resulting values of the correlation coefficient, we found only slight linear dependence. The exception was the countries of Australia and Oceania, where a strong dependence was found for all the years in question. This kind of analysis has significance primarily on the macroeconomic level. The individual countries can investigate, evaluate, and consequently improve their respective logistic systems and services. Understanding and decomposing the components of trade and logistics performance can help countries improve freight transport efficiency and identify where international cooperation could help overcome barriers.

scholarly journals Foraging movements are density-independent among straw-coloured fruit bats

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 200274
Author(s):  
María C. Calderón-Capote ◽  
Dina K. N. Dechmann ◽  
Jakob Fahr ◽  
Martin Wikelski ◽  
Roland Kays ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Intraspecific Competition ◽  
Colony Size ◽  
Resource Depletion ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Foraging Patterns ◽  
Fruit Bat ◽  
Foraging Movements ◽  
Productive Landscapes ◽  
Eidolon Helvum

Intraspecific competition in large aggregations of animals should generate density-dependent effects on foraging patterns. To test how large differences in colony size affect foraging movements, we tracked seasonal movements of the African straw-coloured fruit bat ( Eidolon helvum ) from four colonies that range from 4000 up to 10 million animals. Contrary to initial predictions, we found that mean distance flown per night (9–99 km), number of nightly foraging sites (2–3) and foraging and commuting times were largely independent of colony size. Bats showed classic central-place foraging and typically returned to the same day roost each night. However, roost switching was evident among individuals in three of the four colonies especially towards the onset of migration. The relatively consistent foraging patterns across seasons and colonies indicate that these bats seek out roosts close to highly productive landscapes. Once foraging effort starts to increase due to local resource depletion they migrate to landscapes with seasonally increasing resources. This minimizes high intraspecific competition and may help to explain why long-distance migration, otherwise rare in bats, evolved in this highly gregarious species.

Commerce and Cooperation: Litigation and Settlement of Civil Disputes on the Australian Frontier, 1860–1990

2000 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 1088-1119
Author(s):  
B. Zorina Khan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
New South ◽  
New South Wales ◽  
Market Exchange ◽  
Conflict And Cooperation ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Cooperative Solutions ◽  
Informal Rules ◽  
Over Time

I examine the evolution of conflict and cooperation during economic growth by analyzing civil disputes in New South Wales between 1860 and 1900. Disputes per capita fell over time and the proportion of cases settled before trial increased, but patterns varied across locations and types of disputes. Economic conflicts were likelier to be settled than personal disputes, and the fraction of cases settled was significantly lower in frontier areas and in districts without access to transportation. The results suggest that increased market exchange facilitates the development of informal rules and encourages transactors to find cooperative solutions through private bargaining.

Prestige and Prejudice: The Role of Long Distance Big Game Hunting as an Optimal Foraging Decision

2012 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 168-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deanna N. Grimstead
Keyword(s):  
Central Place ◽  
Central Place Foraging ◽  
Economic Returns ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Return Rates ◽  
Small Game ◽  
Game Hunting ◽  
Big Game Hunting ◽  
Foraging Decision

AbstractSignaling theory has much to offer anthropology and archaeology, which is in part why there is an increasing number of applications and healthy debates surrounding how best to apply it. One of those debates surrounds whether big game hunting is a costly signal or simply an aspect of efficient foraging. Grimstead (2010) contributed to this debate by showing that long-distance big-game hunting (greater than 100 km roundtrip) produces higher caloric return rates than does local small-game hunting, despite increased costs of travel and transport for the former. Whittaker and Carpenter (this issue) present a model that also suggests long-distance big-game hunting produces higher economic returns than local foraging but only up to about 50 km. This paper provides further details on the tenets of the Grimstead (2010) paper in response to criticisms by Whittaker and Carpenter (this issue), and then uses a previously published central place foraging model (Cannon 2003) to show that another model also shows long-distance big-game hunting over a distance greater than 100 kilometers roundtrip produces higher returns than local foraging.

ECONOMY, EXCHANGE, AND POWER: NEW EVIDENCE FROM THE LATE CLASSIC MAYA PORT CITY OF CANCUEN

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur A. Demarest ◽  
Chloé Andrieu ◽  
Paola Torres ◽  
Mélanie Forné ◽  
Tomás Barrientos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Port City ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Postclassic Period ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Terminal Classic

AbstractThe site of Cancuen held a strategic position as “head of navigation” of the Pasión River and the physical nexus of land and river routes between the southern highlands, the Maya lowlands, and the transversal route to Tabasco and Veracruz. For that reason, the well-defined ports of Cancuen were critical to both Classic Maya highland/lowland commerce and interactions with the far west. All aspects of Cancuen were related to its role as a port city. By the late eighth century, evidence suggests that in the site epicenter peninsula ports and other aspects of the economy were elite controlled and supervised, based on associated architectural complexes, artifacts, imports, and placement. Recent evidence indicates that, in addition to previously discussed long-distance exchange in exotics such as jade and pyrite, Cancuen also was involved in very large-scale obsidian transport and production, as well as probable exchange of other piedmont commodities such as cacao, cotton, salt, achiote (Bixa orellana), and vanilla.Distribution of architectural, epigraphic, and iconographic evidence and an administrative/ritual palace all indicate growing roles for nobles in these economic activities, particularly the ports. It would appear that, as elsewhere, nobles were taking a more direct mercantile role and that many aspects of themultepalsystem of power, characteristic of Postclassic period societies, were already in place at Cancuen by the late eighth century. The failure of Cancuen's early transition to a Terminal Classic political economy may be related to its dependence on highland resources and overextended trade networks.

Severe Poverty as a Violation of Negative Duties

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Pogge
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Poor Country ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Market Exchange ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Oil Revenues ◽  
Institutional Order

Mathias Risse discusses whether the global system of territorial sovereignty that emerged in the fifteenth century can be said to harm the poorer societies. This question is distinct from the question I raise in my book—namely, whether present citizens of the affluent countries, in collusion with the ruling elites of most poor countries, are harming the global poor. These questions are different, because present citizens of the affluent countries bear responsibility only for the recent design of the global institutional order. The effects of the states system as it was shaped before 1980, say, is thus of little relevance to the question I have raised. A further difference is that whereas Risse's discussion focuses on the well-being of societies, typically assessed by their GNP per capita, my discussion focuses on the well-being of individual human beings. This difference is significant because what enriches a poor country (in terms of GNP per capita) all too often impoverishes the vast majority of its inhabitants, as I discuss with the example of Nigeria's oil revenues (pp. 112–14).My focus is then on the present situation, on the radical inequality between the bottom half of humankind, suffering severe poverty, and those in the top seventh, whose per capita share of the global product is 180 times greater than theirs (at market exchange rates). This radical inequality and the continuous misery and death toll it engenders are foreseeably reproduced under the present global institutional order as we have shaped it. And most of it could be avoided, I hold, if this global order had been, or were to be, designed differently. The feasibility of a more poverty-avoiding alternative design of the global institutional order shows, I argue, that the present design is unjust and that, by imposing it, we are harming the global poor by foreseeably subjecting them to avoidable severe poverty.

scholarly journals Central Sites and the Development of Rural Settlements from the Middle to Late La Tène Period in Central Moravia

2021 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 197-236
Author(s):  
Ivan Čižmář ◽  
Alžběta Danielisová
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Strong Influence ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Extensive Study ◽  
Rural Settlements ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
The West ◽  
Central Places ◽  
Morava River

At a certain point in time, there were two central places in central Moravia: an older unfortified central agglomeration near the present-day village of Němčice nad Hanou and a younger oppidum at Staré Hradisko. Each of this centres had its own approach to raw materials, orientation of the socio-economic contacts, and possibly political focus as well. Němčice, being located at one of the main branches of the Amber Road, connected the Middle Danube area from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic; Staré Hradisko eventually expanded these contacts into a systematic trade network, being under the strong influence of the Bohemian region with links to Bavaria. During the LT C2, in addition to the location of the central place, changes took place in terms of material culture and settlement strategies in the region. This was further accentuated in LT D1 by the shift of settlements towards the west, to the vicinity of the oppidum and, at the same time, vacation of the corridor around the Morava River. In an attempt to chronologically assess the settlement pattern, it became evident how important it is to define, as precisely as possible, the dating of individual sites. This was only possible thanks to the detailed and extensive study of the material available (Čižmář 2018). Thanks to precise dating of settlements and classification based on the new chronology, the seemingly illogical group of settlements in central Moravia revealed a distinct settlement network which, in particular during the period contemporary with the oppidum, allows us to see the significant changes in the number of sites and in the orientation of long-distance contacts that were possibly associated with historical events.

scholarly journals KAMPEN FOR OVERLEVELSE: Demografisk bevidsthed og forestillinger om forbundethed i den israelsk-jødiske

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helene Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Jewish Law ◽  
Fertility Treatments ◽  
Israeli Government ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Jewish Religion

To “be fruitful and multiply” is an imperative in Jewish law. Procreation has, therefore, a central place in Jewish religion and Jewish life. Since the state’s founding in 1948 the Israeli government has conducted a pronatalist policy to increase the Jewish population by encouraging Jewish childbirth and immigration to Israel. The country leads the world with the number of fertility clinics per capita, and treatments are heavily subsidized by the national health insurance. The explanation that is given for the scale of fertility clinics and the progressive fertility legislation national rests on the fear of losing the Jewish majority. The article problematizes this argument by exploring how demographic consciousness in Israel not only includes knowledge of the country’s demographic composition, but also collective memory of hardship, struggle and of origin. These issues answer the question as to who can be included in the national family. Central to demographic consciousness is kinship and gender, nationhood, Jewishness and citizenship. These notions of relatedness are made explicit and mobilized differently in changing situations of fertility treatments. The goal of the article is to show that insight into demographic consciousness is necessary to elucidate the complex context of fertility treatments in Israel.  

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