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

The models used for evaluation of the evidence here include: a nucleated central
place (Symonds 2000; González-Lauck 1997), a capital zone (Stark 1999), a confederacy
of elite lineages (Pool 2003:96), and a feudalistic alliance between a vassal site and a
regional sovereignty (Taschek and Ball 2003). The underlying premise of these locational
models is the interpretation of economic practices relative to the spatial distribution of
sites (Christaller 1966; Lösch 1954; Mayhew 1997). In other words, these models attempt
to define the socioeconomic rules that determine the size, number, and distribution of
sites within a settlement pattern. These conceptualized systems are then used to evaluate
patterns in the placement of internal components of a site including activity areas,
architecture, and features. From this evaluation, the political structure and economic
system is inferred.
Although the initial central place theory was established by Christaller (1966
[1933], 1972) in the 20 th century to examine a market-based capitalistic system in
Southern Germany, there are sufficient parallels to Mesoamerican political economies to
permit it to be employed as tool in their evaluation (Inomata and Aoyama 1996). This and
other models can assist us to better understand why and how urban settlements evolved
and how they were spatially related to one another along the Southern Gulf Lowlands.
Marquardt and Crumley (1987) describe the spatial limits and patterned arrangements of
an archaeological site as landscape signatures, the material traces left on the land surface
by the distinct development of human groups. They state that use and non-use of space
are material representations of the cultural principles that include towns, villages, camps,
transport features, shrines, caches, and burials. Through analysis of these combined data,
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