An Unexplored Realm in the Heartland of the Southern Gulf ... - Famsi

Sanders and Webster (1988:544) argue in support of Fox’s (1977) “regal-ritual
model” that necessitates small populations in and around political-religious centers.
Associated centers were constrained by transportation and communication systems, a
factor that made San Lorenzo, La Venta, and Tres Zapotes special places. The authors
contend that these centers functioned primarily as ideological cores that emphasized
symbolic ritual and ceremony that were, in actuality, a pretense for underlying political
manipulation. They add that significant centers emerged in areas of abundant resources,
which provided an exceptional potential for elite-controlled subsistence production. A
further implication was that agriculture in the region led to greater social complexity
through surplus production. The assumption of small populations limited to ritual and
ceremony has been challenged by recent surveys that demonstrate intensive occupations
at San Lorenzo (Borstein 2001; Symonds et al. 2002) and La Venta (Pohl 2001; Rust
1992; Rust and Sharer 1988) and the discovery of craft workshops and production areas
at each of these sites (Cyphers 1996b, 1997b; Rojas-Chavez 1990; Rust 1988).
The presence of centralized authority and social complexity at population centers
along the Southern Gulf Lowlands during the Formative period is suggested by the
organization of major labor efforts, long distance resource acquisition, settlement
patterns, and symbol systems. A primary question regarding this centralization is how
was it achieved? In addition to those previously mentioned, numerous scholars have
attributed the emergence and expansion of this power to military might and warfare
(Borstein 2001; Coe and Diehl 1980a; Hassig 1992; Reilly and Garber 2003; Sheets
2003).
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