A Forest of History: The Maya after the Emergence of Divine Kingship

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Divine Kingship

The Prehistory of Hawai‘i

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick V. Kirch
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Environmental Gradients ◽  
Hawaiian Islands ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Sociopolitical Complexity ◽  
Monumental Architecture ◽  
Specialized Production ◽  
The World ◽  
Divine Kingship

The Hawaiian Islands are the most isolated inhabited archipelago in the world. Initially colonized around A.D. 1000, the environmental gradients of rainfall and island-age have influenced subsequent cultural variation and differentiation in the islands. Settlements are typically dispersed hamlets and integrated within agricultural facilities such as irrigated pondfields and dryland field systems. Populations were politically organized in idealized pie-shaped units or ahupua`a that typically encompass a cross-section of island resources. Material culture , including fishhooks, stone tools, and religious temples, is broadly similar within these units, but there is also much evidence for elite control of specialized production in some areas. The Hawaiian Islands are the archetypal chiefdom society, although based on changes in demography, monumental architecture (heiau) and royal centers, intensive agriculture, and divine kingship, the population had likely crossed the threshold of sociopolitical complexity to that of an archaic state prior to the arrival of Europeans in 1778.

Monumental Landscapes, Changing Ideologies, and Political Histories in the Mopan Valley

2020 ◽  
pp. 290-312
Author(s):  
M. Kathryn Brown ◽  
Jason Yaeger
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Classic ◽  
Monumental Architecture ◽  
Sociopolitical Organization ◽  
Political Landscape ◽  
Middle Preclassic ◽  
Key Sites ◽  
Divine Kingship

In Chapter 14, Brown and Yaeger discuss the sociopolitical organization of several key sites in the Mopan Valley from the early Middle Preclassic through the end of the Late Classic period. Through an examination of monumental architecture, public art, and ritual practices, the authors describe the political development over this 1,600-year period beginning with Early Xunantunich, the first major political center beginning in the early Middle Preclassic, to the latest, Classic Xunantunich, which was abandoned in the 9th century. The centers of Actuncan and Buenavista del Cayo filled a vacuum in the valley in the intervening centuries, playing major roles on the political landscape during the Late Preclassic and Early Classic periods, respectively. The authors trace how political authority and ideology became more centralized and the institutions of divine kingship developed as each center succeeded one another. It is clear from the data presented in this chapter that monumental constructions are at the forefront of our understanding of the development of the political landscape in the Mopan Valley, a landscape where ritual and religion played key roles in the rise of complexity.

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