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4 Diversity of Power and Authority in a Maya City Archaeologists have viewed status and power among the ancient Maya as a function of leadership within lineages.1 One of the more powerful models is that of the segmentary state,in which lineage heads hold authority over members of their lineage. In this chapter, I argue that such lineages lived in bounded residential components of Blue Creek and that power among them was created and maintained by interaction among leaders of lineages. However, while some lineages rose to positions of multigenerational power, others did not. In essence, I argue that while the Maya state was composed of lineages, heterarchy, or multiple paths to power, existed among these lineages. Further, power was created and reinforced by interaction among lineage heads and the control that lineages had over critical resources. In the previous chapter,I demonstrated that Blue Creek is composed of bounded, discrete, and distinctive residential components, usually separated by highly productive agricultural lands. More important, each component had its own distinctive organizational and historical dynamics that were probably related to land tenure and resources.2 However, these dynamics are also related to the structures of power and authority that were established in each component. In this chapter,I will examine four of these residential components more closely: the elaborate residences of the site core, the elite residences of Kín Tan, and the non-elite residences of Sayap Ha and U Xulil Beh. Each has fundamentally differing organizational principles and internal power structures. How did their political leaders interact and how were they integrated into a single polity? I argue that longterm , multigenerational interaction among the lineages residing in these components reinforced the authority and legitimacy of the rulers in the site core and of the local leaders in each residential component. This approach is steeped in world systems theory, a conceptual framework that archaeologists and others have borrowed and remade into their own from its origins in sociology. Immanuel Wallerstein first applied his concept of a core-periphery dichotomy to modern world market economics.In essence,he argued that the developed world would always hold economic advantages over the underdeveloped world. Waller- 70 Chapter 4 stein argued that the underdeveloped world would supply commodities, such as metals,to the developed world.In turn,the developed world would convert them to value added products, such as automobiles, and sell them back to the underdeveloped world. In Wallerstein’s view, the underdeveloped periphery would forever remain unable to catch up to the developed core. Wallerstein went on to define the concept that we live today in an interconnected world system and that the relationships and interactions among the components of the world system define power, authority, and legitimacy within the system.3 There is a large leap from Wallerstein’s approach to international economics in the industrialized world to analysis of the nonindustrialized, pre-Columbian past. However, Wallerstein’s focus on interaction can be extended to other settings. Archaeologists have applied variants of Wallerstein’s core-periphery and world systems models to prehistoric cultures in order to model economics and political interaction .4 In the Maya area, early formulations of Maya economics examined the goods traded among Maya polities. However, William Rathje changed the discussion by using the core-periphery model to argue that interaction between the central Petén Maya and outlying areas created a political economy that led to complex society.5 Since Rathje’s attempts to deal with Maya political economy, a large body of work has developed on both the nature and implications of Maya economic interaction.6 One approach has been to undertake empirical studies of the mechanics of interregional trade.7 The second approach has been to focus on the structural relationships within polities that controlled the flow of goods.8 Another applicable concept is the idea of human agency as represented in the past. The French philosopher Pierre Bourdieu discussed the notion that human interaction is based on all parties being mobilized into concordance.9 In other words, a leader cannot simply tell a follower to do something; the follower must have adequate motivation to follow. Archaeologists have transformed this concept into that of “agency,” meaning that people create and re-create societies through their actions.10 The concept of agency focuses our study of the archaeological record on the interactions among individuals. Individuals both compete and collaborate for authority and power. They also use their relationships with each other to manipulate...

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