[Comments and Replies]

riods of piedmont expansion, many of these communities collapsed. Elites were not immune from the long-term consequences of their behavioral strategies. While elite status increased dramatically during the Late Formative and Classic, it is possible that the ideology that legitimated their power also contributed to its sudden collapse. The collapse of Classic-period polities is not well understood, although it probably involved a combination of ecological, economic, and sociopolitical factors (Blanton I983a, Culbert I973, Winter Ig8gb). It is possible that as factors uch as environmental degradation, warfare, and inequality intensified, people began to question the dominant ideology. The relatively sudden collapse of sites like Monte Albain, Cerro de las Minas, and Yucufiudahui might have occurred when people abandoned the dominant ideology as well as the rulers it supported (see Habermas I975). The shared identity of elites might also have facilitated the collapse of many Mesoamerican polities between about A.D. 700 and goo. If the dominant ideology could be overthrown or abandoned in one region, there would be greater eason to question it in others. Regardless of the causes for decline of the urban centers, it would seem that the elite strategies that had held these polities together for centuries ceased to be effective. We do not know whether the final collapse was peaceful or violent, but it certainly would not have occurred in a vacuum. Other leaders probably took over in the resulting chaos and began to recast their ideology to support he developing political relations of the Postclassic city-states.

[1]  David J. Wilson.  Prehispanic Settlement Patterns in the Lower Santa Valley, Peru: A Regional Perspective on the Origins and Development of Complex North Coast Society , 1998 .

[2]  J. Zenzen.  The history of a myth , 1997 .

[3]  T. Charlton,et al.  Art, Ideology, and the City of Teotihuacan. , 1994 .

[4]  A. Sherratt,et al.  Archaeological theory: who sets the agenda?: Contents , 1993 .

[5]  Shereen Ratnagar.  Enquiries into the political organization of Harappan society , 1993 .

[6]  J. Urcid,et al.  The Pacific Coast of Oaxaca and Guerrero , 1993, Ancient Mesoamerica.

[7]  C. Spencer.  Human agency, biased transmission, and the cultural evolution of chiefly authority , 1993 .

[8]  J. Zeitlin.  The Politics of Classic-Period Ritual Interaction , 1993, Ancient Mesoamerica.

[9]  George J. Bey,et al.  Ceramic Production And Distribution: An Integrated Approach , 1992 .

[10]  M. J. O’Brien,et al.  Regional analysis of the Zapotec empire, Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico , 1992 .

[11]  P. Peregrine.  Some political aspects of craft specialization , 1991 .

[12]  G. Willey.  Horizonal Integration and Regional Diversity: An Alternating Process in the Rise of Civilizations , 1991, American Antiquity.

[13]  I. Hodder,et al.  Labor Control and Emergent Stratification in Prehistoric Europe [and Comments and Reply] , 1990, Current Anthropology.

[14]  O. Murray,et al.  Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism , 1990 .

[15]  J. Vincent.  Anthropology and Politics: Visions, Traditions, and Trends , 1990 .

[16]  B. Voorhies.  Ancient trade and tribute : economies of the Soconusco region of Mesoamerica , 1990 .

[17]  James G. Flanagan.  Hierarchy in Simple "Egalitarian" Societies , 1989 .

[18]  W. Sewell.  A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation , 1989, American Journal of Sociology.

[19]  E. Schortman.  Interregional Interaction in Prehistory: The Need for a New Perspective , 1989, American Antiquity.

[20]  Peter J. Wilson,et al.  The Domestication of the Human Species , 1988 .

[21]  William T. Sanders,et al.  The Mesoamerican Urban Tradition , 1988 .

[22]  D. Freidel,et al.  Kingship in the Late Preclassic Maya Lowlands: The Instruments and Places of Ritual Power , 1988 .

[23]  Michael E. Whalen.  Small Community Organization During the Late Formative Period in Oaxaca, Mexico , 1988 .

[24]  Kristian Kristiansen,et al.  Centre and Periphery in the Ancient World , 1987 .

[25]  A. Vayda.  Holism and individualism in ecological anthropology , 1986 .

[26]  A. Whittle,et al.  ANATOMY OF A TOMB-WEST KENNET REVISITED , 1986 .

[27]  Rudolf Van Zantwijk,et al.  The Aztec arrangement : the social history of pre-Spanish Mexico , 1986 .

[28]  Karen Rasler,et al.  War and the Economic Growth of Major Powers , 1985 .

[29]  V. Volkan.  The need to have enemies and allies: A developmental approach. , 1985 .

[30]  C. Renfrew,et al.  Theory and explanation in archaeology : the Southampton conference , 1985 .

[31]  D. Kurtz.  Strategies of legitimation and the aztec state , 1984 .

[32]  J. Gledhill,et al.  Europe and the People Without History , 1984 .

[33]  S. Shennan,et al.  Ranking, resource and exchange : aspects of the archaeology of early European society , 1983 .

[34]  Joyce Marcus,et al.  The Cloud People: Divergent Evolution of The Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations , 1983 .

[35]  R. Zuidema.  HIERARCHY AND SPACE IN INCAIC SOCIAL ORGANIZATION , 1983 .

[36]  C. Geertz,et al.  Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali , 1982 .

[37]  H. P. Pollard.  Central Places and Cities: A Consideration of the Protohistoric Tarascan State , 1980, American Antiquity.

[38]  R. Santley.  Disembedded Capitals Reconsidered , 1980, American Antiquity.

[39]  Stephen A. Kowalewski.  Population-Resource Balances in Period I of Oaxaca, Mexico , 1980, American Antiquity.

[40]  Henry T. Wright.  Recent Research on the Origin of the State , 1977 .

[41]  D. Butterworth,et al.  The Zapotecs: Princes, Priests, and Peasants , 1977 .

[42]  Joyce Marcus,et al.  Formative Oaxaca and the Zapotec Cosmos , 1976 .

[43]  A. Vayda,et al.  New Directions in Ecology and Ecological Anthropology , 1975 .

[44]  D. L. Webster,et al.  Warfare and the Evolution of the State: A Reconsideration , 1975, American Antiquity.

[45]  Henry T. Wright,et al.  POPULATION, EXCHANGE, AND EARLY STATE FORMATION IN SOUTHWESTERN IRAN , 1975 .

[46]  K. V. Flannery.  The Cultural Evolution of Civilizations , 1972 .

[47]  P. Schneider,et al.  Modernization and Development: the Role of Regional Elites and Noncorporate Groups in the European Mediterranean , 1972, Comparative Studies in Society and History.

[48]  J. Murra.  Cloth and Its Functions in the Inca State1 , 1962 .

[49]  ROBERT E. Smith.  The Place of Fine Orange Pottery in Mesoamerican Archaeology , 1958, American Antiquity.

[50]  Joyce Marcus,et al.  Political fluctuations in Mesoamerica , 1992 .

[51]  William J. Parry,et al.  Chipped Stone Tools in Formative Oaxaca, Mexico: Their Procurement, Production and Use , 1987 .

[52]  Annette B. Weiner.  'A World Of Made Is Not A World Of Born': Doing Kula In Kiriwina , 1983 .

[53]  P. Plunket.  An intensive survey in the Yucuita sector of the Nochixtlán Valley, Oaxaca, Mexico , 1983 .

[54]  G. Pollard.  The Prehistory of NW Argentina: the Calchaquí Valley Project, 1977–1981 , 1983 .

[55]  M. J. O’Brien,et al.  A late formative irrigation settlement below Monte Albán : survey and excavation on the Xoxocotlán Piedmont, Oaxaca, Mexico , 1982 .

[56]  Michael E. Whalen.  Excavations at Santo Domingo Tomaltepec : evolution of a formative community in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico , 1981 .

[57]  J. Sabloff.  Analyses of fine paste ceramics , 1980 .

[58]  J. Murra.  The Economic Organization Of The Inka State , 1980 .

[59]  S. Frankenstein,et al.  The Internal Structure and Regional Context of Early Iron Age Society in South-Western Germany , 1978 .

[60]  R. Spores.  Stratigraphic excavations in the Nochixtlan Valley, Oaxaca , 1974 .

[61]  R. Spores.  An archaeological settlement survey of the Nochixtlan Valley, Oaxaca , 1972 .

[62]  María Rostworowski de Díez.  Mercaderes del valle de Chincha en la época prehispánica: un documento y unos comentarios. , 1970 .

[63]  I. D. L. Vega.  Comentarios Reales de los Incas , 1960 .

[64]  John Howland Rowe,et al.  Inca Culture At The Time Of The Spanish Conquest , 1946 .